


Thick Skin And An Elastic Heart

by EllieCarina, ViciousRhythm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU, Collab, Collaboration, Crime AU, Drug Use, Edgeplay, Explicit Language, F/M, First Order, Foster System, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Kylo POV, Marathon Sex, Masturbation, Mentions of Child Trafficking, Modern AU, New York City, Novel Length, Oral, Organized Crime, Rey Kenobi, Rey POV, Slow Burn, Two POVs, UST, but not for long friends, death by boner, established finnrey, fbi!rey, kenobi!rey, long chapters, mentions of drug abuse, mentions of drug dealing, no force, no galaxy far far away, not quite graphic but descriptions of violence, poor kylo always turned on out of his head, rey doesn't fare much better though, slight exhibitionism, so much plot with a dash of smut, switching POVs, underground crime!kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:06:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 216,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5903710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieCarina/pseuds/EllieCarina, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViciousRhythm/pseuds/ViciousRhythm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As soon as Rey’s brain decides to function again, she thinks of the approximately three choices she has going forward and their consequences. <br/>Number One: She calls the bureau immediately and occupies Ben Solo for as long as it takes until they get there and arrest him. Number Two: She goes up on the roof, assesses the situation, tries to talk some sense into him and decide then if she will let him walk again - this being the most treasonous of the choices.<br/>Number Three: She does absolutely nothing and pretends she hasn’t seen anything.</p><p>Three would require the least effort and if she does nothing, at least she can do nothing wrong. Number One is the right thing to do. Rey, resolved, stubs out her cigarette, flicks it into the dark and opts for option two.</p><p>**</p><p>Rey Kenobi and Ben Solo where children together once, in a wretched foster home with no one but each other to care about. Then life sent them on very different paths and after a whirlwind affair years later, Agent Rey Kenobi learns that Ben goes by the name of Kylo Ren now and is part of the organized crime ring The First Order - and now he is her new target and prime objective.</p><p>**</p><p>Modern-OrganizedCrime-FBI-AU || Collaboration-Fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. CHAPTER ONE

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Freer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5568037) by [EllieCarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieCarina/pseuds/EllieCarina). 



> Welcome any and all. We are very proud to put this fic out together. It's probably going to update once a week with long chapters.  
> Rey's POV is mostly written by EllieCarina and Kylo's POV is mostly written by ViciousRhythm.
> 
> We are eternally grateful for your thoughts and comments and hope you have as much fun reading as we have writing this!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [SONGS] 
> 
> Preface: Push Forward by Lena (https://open.spotify.com/track/4L5mu8Y8WKvLuffjXkU1OG)  
> Chapter One: Breathe (2 AM) - Anna Nalick (https://open.spotify.com/track/5auMzVHFr5Zfw6IbKarZ56)

**PREFACE: [Like Horses On a Carousel (Never Won But Always Keep Racing)]**

 

The rain falls like strings, in a heavy pitter-patter and the wind gets the water everywhere. It makes her grip on the Glock ‘19 slippery at best. This is a problem. The soaking wet woman with the gun poised in an unspoken threat curses harshly and tries to see past not only the darkness but also the stubborn tears that brim in her eyes.

The man stands several feet away from her, his own gun raised, pointing at the middle of her chest. She can see his ribs rise and fall under heavy strain. The warning shot she has fired into the night has finally made him stop running. Faced with the dark figure against a darker sky, the dock where their chase has led them is deserted save for the pair. It won’t be thus for long. And he must know it, must know she wouldn’t engage him without calling for back-up. This is the first time she actually gets eyes on him, actually comes face to face when before he was just a shadow, always getting away from her before he could be apprehended. It’s so dark, she can hardly see the outlines of his body.

Still, no matter how little light reaches his features, they’re his, painfully bare as they have always been. A long face with a prominent, arching nose, deep-set, turmoiled eyes under thin, flimsy brows and a wide mouth that had always known how to make her speechless. She wonders for the umpteenth time how they got here.

They’d been children together once. In that wretched foster home when he’d been the only person in the world who seemed to care about her at all. And then he’d turned 16 and left her at the first possible out, like everyone else had. When she saw him again, fourteen years later, there’d been resentment underneath the nostalgia but they had a different sort of renaissance anyway. A couple of hot and desperate nights in the apartment she now shared with a wonderful man named Finn, and then he’d left her again, giving some obscure reason on the lines of: “I’m not good for you, I need to stay away from you and you from me.”

When just two weeks later, his face appeared on a profiler’s presentation, she was sure at first to still be reeling from history repeating itself, and had only imagined it, because truly, she saw his face everywhere. But no. Sure enough, it was Ben, her Ben . Or Kylo, as it was. His alias, or street name or whatever they called it these days. Blood had rushed through her ears, leaving only fragments of the intel understandable. Underground crime ring. The First Order . Drugs and weapons and human trafficking and every despicable thing one could imagine. In the space where the head-counts of those guys were provided - as if it was just another thing to tick off like height and bio-points - was a number that made her stomach turn.

She’d chased him then, relentlessly. Equal parts humiliated and enraged, disappointed and deeply, deeply hurt. She couldn’t reconcile either her old memories of the gangly youth that he’d been, carrying her child-self on his shoulders and tickling each other until they both cried with laughter, nor the man she had come to know in the privacy of her bed, so attentive and luscious in his adoration, with this persona he’d created. He was a phantom, a horror story in and of itself in the circles he operated in.

They’d nearly come face to face a couple of times but he always evaded her, looking haunted and marked by uncertainty. As if he wasn’t sure he even wanted to be this person but then he’d turn around, and without fail, committed another horrendous crime. 

Before long, naturally, her childhood-link to him was discovered and she suddenly became an asset, a lynchpin in the investigation and they told her she’d go far in the agency. If she were the one to bring him in, to get Kylo Ren, right hand to the mastermind behind the First Order operation, behind bars - or six feet under, either way. Her superiors were not explicitly shy of admitting that. Ben - no Kylo , she reprimanded herself - had killed enough agents and police that the entire force of the law wouldn’t mind if he caught a bullet during his apprehension.

And now, a year into this game of cat and mouse, she has him, right there in front of her gun, in a stare-down that throws her back not to other arrests but, shamefully, to wrinkled sheets and his open face as he pushed into her. He would always study her twisting features as he moved in her, waiting and committing her responses to memory. She tries to shake the thought and focus on the situation at hand but it’s hard. His strange expression and the storm that engulfs them both makes everything feel so unreal, she has to remind herself that this is not some strange nightmare.

“Put the gun down, Ben,” she yells after taking a deep, composing breath. Thankfully it takes so now she sounds steadily and composed, her voice carrying over the patter of rain, “Or do you prefer Kylo now?”

“I can’t,” he calls back. She grunts in frustration, taking three long strides toward him. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even readjust his aim and his face takes clearer shapes in her approach.

“Put. The. Gun. Down,” she repeats, “You know the cavalry is on its way. You’ve got nowhere to go, just put the gun down and let me bring you in, I can help you if you only cooperate .”

“God, it just had to be you, right?” He shouts half at the sky, half at her like he hasn’t even heard her. 

Then, in a rash move, he brings his arms above his head and clasps them over his face, his gun pressed against his forehead in a move so loaded with fatigue and frustration, she can feel it in her bones. She repositions herself, brings up her other hand to secure the grip on her weapon when suddenly he shifts, takes a deep breath and lowers hands and gun to hold out his arms to both sides.

“Do it, then,” he barks and she sighs in relief, starting a step that is stopped cold in its tracks as he waves his gun at her again.

“No,” he says, waving her away, an almost incredulous expression on his face, “I’m not letting you arrest me, Rey. Shoot me. Get it over with.”

“ No ,” she jumps at the sound of her name from his lips the thought of doing what he asks alone is ludicrous. There’s no way, she would just kill him like that, without a threat to her life or the lives of others. He is crazy to even propose it, out of his mind - but then again with what he does, it’s probably no reach and she wants him to know that this alone disgusts her. “Executions are more your style.”

It is a low, low blow and she has no idea why she would say something this testy in a situation this dire but she can’t escape her personality, not even now.

Ben only laughs , the unbelieving, insane laugh of a desperate man, and then he raises his gun anew  but before Rey can fear for her life, he shoves it under his own chin.

“BEN,” she screams, frozen to her spot, “Don’t you dare !”

“Then you do it,” he challenges, serious as death, locking his determined gaze on hers, his eyes endless pools of a fatalistic sort of sadness, “You said it yourself, I’ve nowhere left to go. If I get arrested, Snoke will find a way to get to me before they can even start to prepare a trial. Do it and you’ll be free of me.”

Rey’s face twitches. How could he even know he was something she needed to be free of? Because of course he is, stuck in her head, like a broken record for little over a year now, all sighs and growls and fingernails clawing at her insides until they burn with shame and longing.

“I know, I could do with some freedom,” he says and it’s so quiet it’s a wonder she hears it, “I don’t have a choice, Rey. This is the only way I know how to live, I couldn’t change, even if I tried, and I wanted you safe, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Kill me. End this. Free me, free yourself!”

“Fuck, Ben,” she yells in blind frustration, because how can he ask this of her? “I’d feel freer if you were handcuffed to me!”

Instead of a response, he cocks the gun, clicking the safety off and she lowers her own because there is nothing else she can do. She wonders briefly if this is just a play, a last resort strategy or if he will really pull the trigger. She wouldn’t put it beyond him and she can’t bring herself to risk it.

“Stop!” She hollers, “Just stop .”

And he does, pausing. His eyes lock hers in place and she hates him and she still loves him and hates him even more for that.

“Go,” she says, a single tear disguised by the raindrops on her cheeks as she makes a decision that could unravel her whole life, “I’ll hold them off.”

When he understands what she means to do, he disappears swiftly into the night without so much as a backward glance and Rey is once again left to deal with the shatters he leaves behind in his wake.

 

* * *

 

 

**CHAPTER ONE: [You’re Just As Far In As You’ll Ever Be Out]**

 

Nobody suspected a thing when Agent Rey Kenobi was joined at the dock by the reinforcements she had called in and declared to them that Kylo Ren had gotten away.

“I had him right there,” she’d said to someone, “but then he turned a corner and I lost him.”

No one faulted her. She’d been alone after all and in pursuit on foot, in the rain and the dark. Less than perfect conditions for an apprehension. No, not a single soul in the entire FBI placed any blame whatsoever on Rey for one of their most wanted having evaded capture yet again.

 

The fact that they were all glaringly wrong about this and that Rey had damn near commited treason by actually letting him go willingly, still eats away at her two weeks after the fact. She tries to tell herself that she didn’t have a choice, that Ben would have killed himself if she had acted differently and that she did it to save his life but then again, what was his life worth? The order was to bring him in, the ‘dead or alive’ being as heavily implied as it could get in a government agency. She could’ve handed him over in body parts and no small number people would’ve been very pleased with her.

 

But how could she have done that? How could she have stood there and watched him scatter his brains onto the mud? She shakes her head and the imagery of that scenario away, taking a drag from the cigarette she shouldn’t be smoking. She is sitting on the fire escape outside of her fifth floor walk-up apartment, kidding herself into believing that the low rumble of the nightly New York traffic will do anything to alleviate her nerves. She has been so on edge these past few days that Finn actually tiptoed to bed around her some two hours ago.

 

The poor, wonderful soul. He is too good for her, too pure. He wants to help and she wishes he could but he can’t and she can’t even properly confide in him because _clearance_ . Fucking secrets she has to keep. Fucking Ben. And his fucking life choices. And her very own set of those she has been forced by him to make. It’s getting colder, the golden summer is slowly drawing to its close and Rey can feel the darkness of winter loom ahead of her like a glum promise. She needs to quit smoking, sneaking out to the fire escape will be hell once autumn hits. But she holds on to the toxic little thing between her fingers defiantly. She can’t stop, she _needs_ this.

 

When the cigarette is all but burned down, its toxins spreading through her veins with the delusion of calmness, something catches her eye. A flicker of light, something red on her wall. At first she thinks it’s a light from a car somewhere but then it disappears for the fraction of a second only to appear again. And disappear. This is deliberate, manmade. _Morse Code_ , she realizes with a start.

 

_Meet. Me. Rooftop. Five. Minutes. Ben._

 

Rey forgets how to breathe.

 

***

 

_When he realizes Rey is still living in the apartment he knows, Kylo is equal parts pleased and annoyed with her. It certainly makes his life easier, but she should know better than to leave herself and her beloved boyfriend in a place where a wanted criminal knows to find them. Still, as it is, he didn’t have to track her down anew, just has to find the right angle to send a message._

 

_He doesn’t think she’ll see it at first, too lost in her own world, but Kylo can thank her training and reflexes that the small, red dot catches her eye before he’s cycled through his message once. He stops, repeats from the beginning when he sees her notice it, and waits when her understanding freezes her motions. Rey had always been easy to read for him as he’d been easy to read for her, and he can see the moment her mind clicks off._

 

_Kylo stretches up from the crouch he’d been holding for minutes now and heads for the backdoor and the stairs. Either she’ll be there or he’ll spend another night on some roof in the darkness. It’s not like that’s anything new._

 

***

 

As soon as Rey’s brain decides to function again, she thinks of the approximately three choices she has going forward and their consequences. Number One: She calls the bureau instantly and occupies Ben for as long as it takes without him killing himself until they get there and arrest him. Number Two: She goes up on the roof, assesses the situation, tries to talk some sense into him and decide then if she will let him walk again - this is the most treasonous of the choices. Number Three: She does absolutely nothing and pretends she hasn’t seen anything.

 

Number Three would require the least effort and if she does nothing, at least she can do nothing _wrong_. Number One is the right thing to do. Rey, resolved, stubs out her cigarette, flicks it into the dark and opts for Number Two. Finn sleeps soundly as she stalks through their bedroom and she is careful not to make even the fleetingest of sounds.

 

She doesn’t care to explain her actions to herself, owning up to why she breaks the law right now, positively on her way to very likely aid and abet a wanted fugitive, would mean she’d have to quit her job and leave the country. Taking the first stair upward to the roof, the only thing she is willing to admit is that she doesn’t know what else to do that won’t end in Ben winding up dead. Because as he has so deftly demonstrated, he will not be arrested. This leaves her wedged firmly between a rock and a hard place and she wishes she was anybody else tonight.

 

Her heart rate accelerate with every step up and she can’t understand why she is so nervous. It’s not fear, as reckless as _that_ is. But it’s because she knows in her gut that he wouldn’t hurt her - still, why does her chest constrict like the oxygen gets sparse? And why, before she walks through the door that leads to the roof, does she untie her hair from the messy bun on top of her head and finger-combs through it like a teenager on the way to a date? Why, after everything that happened, does she still want to look _good_ for him? What on earth is wrong with her?

 

For all intents and purposes, he is a mass-murderer. He’s killed, what, 75 men and the odd woman from various walks of crime-underworld-life, can be tied to a mind-bogglingly big drug and human-trafficking operation and he is very likely one of the few people who are alive to tell who and where _Snoke_ is. She is not supposed to have butterflies, is not supposed to feel this tiny glowing light in the center of her body that flares up with the prospect of seeing him. She hates him, hates everything he is and most of all how he deceived her. But her head won’t cooperate. She is about to meet Kylo Ren, the criminal, the murderer. But her hair stands up in anticipation for meeting _Ben_.  

 

She braces herself for the scene, tries to imagine his face vividly so it won’t take her aback when she sees it. Swallowing hard, she pushes down on the handle and steps into the night air. And she’s alone. He isn’t there yet, he’s probably on the stairs now and even this thought makes her stomach churn. What is happening to her? She should call the cavalry, she should arrest him, she should, she should, _she should._ Instead, she waits and tries to steady her breathing. Then the door cracks and opens. Rey turns around and the thing about even breaths becomes a lame joke.

 

He is always taller than she remembers, his dark clothes making him appear like a ghost or a shadow but his pale face shines in the moonlight and it’s already telling her much more than she can compute. He closes the door and stands there for a while. Blinking, she has the vague idea that he doesn’t know how far he can get into her space and that he might also be covering his bases in case she has somehow still managed to get back-up up here, keeping the exit at his back for now.

“I’m alone,” she says into the distance between them and maybe it’s unwise, “and unarmed.”

Something in his face clicks that seems to be equal parts relief and reproach, as if he wants to chide her for being so careless.

 

Ben takes a couple of steps forward and beside herself, she mirrors the movement. He’s not quite close enough to touch when they halt, but close enough to make out the colour of his eyes, even in the dim light. He’s exhausted and has this expression plastered on his face like it will eternally stick on there, the one that seems to say: “I don’t think I want any of this”. Rey tilts her head, suddenly irritated with him because of that _look_.

 

_If you don’t want to be this person, why can’t you change?_

 

“What are you doing here?” she asks, face crumpled together in frustration and it’s many questions rolled into one: _Why did you seek me out? Why did you come here after I let you go? Why aren’t you hiding? Why are you this person? What happened to you? What is your play? What do you want from me?_

He takes a deep breath that makes her guess he might not have even half an answer for her.

 

***

 

_It would be much easier to answer her question if Kylo knew the answer himself. What brought him here is the toxic mix of curiosity and obsession that’s always been there. He followed it down the path to the life he leads now, followed it into her bedroom, and never with any regard for what it would do to him. He expected to be dead by now, in a general sense, but also in the more immediate. Kylo still doesn’t know why she didn’t shoot him._

 

 _It’s not unfamiliar to have his life in someone else’s hands these days, given what he does and who he answers to, but owing her his life is different than Snoke_ owning _his life. It splits his loyalties in a way that makes him uncomfortable, like an itch between his shoulders. More than anything else, that’s why he’s here on the rooftop of her apartment building. Because he owes her, and he doesn’t know what that means by her rules, but he’s had the idea beaten into him that debts are paid._

 

_He can’t just walk away from her, for a variety of reasons, but at the forefront of his mind is this one._

_“I came to see what you want,” he says after the silence between them has stretched taut. “You won’t kill me and I won’t let you take me in, so we are at an impasse.”_

 

 _A year ago, he’d been able to ignore it, but that was before. A great many things have happened in the last year, and Kylo himself has turned ever so slightly. Without the lingering curl of poison in his veins, everything is sharper and clearer and all at once more confusing. She should’ve shot him on the docks, he should have died. He_ deserved _to die. He certainly doesn’t deserve to be speaking with her, alone, where they could be anyone, but here she is. Giving him what he doesn’t deserve yet again._

 

 _Part of him is grateful, almost blissfully pleased at the idea that_ someone _is willing to hear him, maybe even offer him a_ way _out. But largely, he wishes she’d quit surprising him and just let him fester and die in peace for however long that’ll take._

 

_***_

 

“What _I_ want? What do _you_ want?” She asks him incredulously, jerking her arms back and forth in between them. “I gave you an out, Ben, a chance to disappear. I could be dragged to court and then _prison_ six ways to Sunday for what I did and now you’re here, on my roof. If anybody finds out about this I’ll be so completely fucked - so you better have some more compelling reason than that.”

 

He just stares at her for a while, having obviously not expected her snapping like that, so she continues in a little lower voice, measuring and trying hard for steady: “I don’t _want_ to kill you, I want you to hand yourself over. We can protect you, they might be lenient if you can get us intel on Snoke.”

“Not gonna happen,” he says with no discernable emotion behind it but also no wiggle room for any further discussion on the matter.

 

Another long pause lasts until her skin and brain burn. Ben runs his hand through his hair and the tiny action throws her back to her bed, to a year ago when she wished she could just watch him for hours smooth strands of stray hair back into place with those nimble elegant fingers. It’s all still there, every beat of desire and every single butterfly in the pit of her stomach. She wants him no less than she did back then, stubbornly and forlorn like the little idiot she is.

 

“So you want me to leave?” He sighs then, catching the shift in her features and suddenly he looks like he is trying hard to keep sadness from creeping over his face.

“No,” she grits out when she should say _yes_. “I want you to explain. What happened to you? How did we get here?”

Ben takes a deep breath and deliberates visibly, if or what to tell her. She takes a pointed step forward and crosses her arms, indicating that she will not let him leave or do anything at all without an explanation.

“After I left the Yavins’,” he says and so obviously he has decided on starting from the beginning, “I travelled half across the country, trying to find work. But I couldn’t do anything but fight and steal and...I didn’t get anywhere. In Chicago I met this guy Hux at a bar. Business man, very collected. He hooked me up with some...stuff.”

 

He’s straight-backed and stiff, not meeting her gaze as he goes on, “I thought I had it under control but I didn’t. Eventually, I just needed _more_ and he provided. Then the conditions came when I ran out of money.”

Rey can’t decide if she wants to sigh or cry. _Oh Ben_ , this is textbook drug-ring snowball-strategy. She knows where it’s going too.

“At first I was just dealing and driving shit and people around, but one night someone attacked Hux’s town car and I handled it. I got promoted after that,” he continues. “I was good at it, Rey. The whole thing, selling, recruiting, enforcing, but also strategizing, handling operations, keeping business in line. It was the first time I was ever good at something, better than the others. And it just went from there.”

 

“When?” she asks and hopes he will understand what she means.

“I got my name when I rose up to the inner circle,” he says, “five years ago.”

“Five years?” Her head shakes without conscious thought. She has known this, read in those files on him how long _Kylo Ren_ had been operating along the east coast but it hasn’t really clicked until now. He’d found her the year before and already was this thing he’d become. Why didn’t she notice? How did he manage to turn everything she knew of the world around in a matter of two, three evenings back then but she’d failed to see that he was _this_?

 

It wasn’t like she’d been flinging herself into his arms either. She’d been mad at him for leaving her with those people back when she was a child and she’d also been confused why he’d looked at her like she was suddenly a woman when their dynamic shifted so drastically from a sibling-like fondness to something entirely different. It had felt irksome and weird initially but she found herself quickly craving that new reality, willing to go to great lengths to encourage him to let it bloom. He’d fought the attraction for half a night after they’d both caught on to the change of trajectory but she didn’t let him win. It would probably remain a mystery for ever who had seduced whom in the end but the outcome remained the same. After, or maybe even _during_ , she fell in love with him like a shot, before she knew what was happening and so quickly she got whiplash.

 

It was truly astounding how entirely he’d stopped being Ben, the boy from the foster home that had looked out for her and became Ben, the man she slept with, the first guy she could actually see herself with going forward. But still, damaged as he’d seemed, or lonely, more like - she’d never have guessed what he was hiding. But who would guess shit like that anyway?

 

“Ben…” She wants to say something but the words stick in her throat.

“Ben died a long time ago, Rey,” he says matter of factly and takes a small step toward her, and then another. She should run, _now_ at the latest but she doesn’t. She remains frozen to her spot as he closes the last of the distance and her breath catches, heart leaping into her mouth when he cups her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he says, oddly sincere, and his hand is warm and calloused. “I shouldn’t have interrupted your life a year ago.”

“Then why did you?” she bites and can finally move away from him, because this still stings, that personal wound that has nothing to do with his dark dealings in the underworld. “Why did you lie? And then leave me high and dry like nothing ever happened without so much as a proper goodbye?”

 

Ben’s hand hovers in mid air, clutching the nothingness where her cheek had been before and it stays there for a deep, hard breath he takes.

“You don’t want to know,” he all but whispers and the hand flops to his side before reforming into a tight fist. “Trust me.”

“We’re not children, Ben,” she bites sternly, “I decide what I want or don’t want to know these days, thank you very much. And if I ever meant anything at all to you, you’ll tell me.”

 

If it’s nothing else, that should be the kicker.

 

***

 

 _“It’s only_ because _you mean something to me that I’m not going to tell you,” he fires back, and goes on to cover up the mistake of letting her know she matters. “You’re an agent now, you should know there’s some things you can’t unlearn, no matter how much you want to, so you’re going to have to take my word for it that you do_ not _want to know why I left.”_

 

_Kylo hasn’t been in the habit of making time with normal people for a while, but even he knows you don’t just up and tell someone you’d planned on murdering their boyfriend. Nevermind that he hadn’t followed through, the intent might be enough to break the brittle version of trust they have between them. Rey may have some weakness for him, but Kylo has no idea how far that extends and isn’t willing to push it._

_“But I swear it wasn’t to hurt you,” he gives her. “And I didn’t show up to ruin your life either. I wasn’t looking for Agent Kenobi, I was looking for Rey. Figured now that I had all this_ success _, I may as well see if that little girl from before still needed me to help her up.”_

_Rey measures his words, he can see her turn them over in her head. He knows she believes him, as well she should because it’s all true. He hadn’t had any idea that she managed to leave the system in one obviously intact piece and went off to become a federal agent of all things. If she’d been a fuckup like him, he could’ve offered her a way up, a better life but as it was, he’d had to lie about what he did for obvious reasons._

 

_“You didn’t ruin anything, if not for lack of trying. Do you know how hard it was to even trust someone enough to let you in at all? To...let you in my bed and my heart like that?” She challenges spitefully and suddenly seems younger than her years. “Before you, I was just fine the way it was. You knew as much when you found me.”_

_“When I found you...,” and he says it like he didn’t find the agent or the little girl, but the woman in between. “I’m used to getting what I want, Rey, and I wanted you.”_

 

_He looks her over, inhaling a frustrated breath and releasing it hard before bringing his eyes up to her face again. He’d been surprised by it himself. Kylo doesn’t know what he’d expected to find, but it hadn’t been this, a grown woman so beautiful it physically hurt to look at her, with all the fire of the girl he’d loved like a sister. Nothing had fit into his plans, and he’d been forced to cast the idea of ‘sister’ away immediately along with all his notions of reconciling with her once he knew what she was. He’s still not sure his selfish scramble to have her at all, even if he couldn’t keep her, won’t be the death of him._

 

_She’s not any less alluring in this moment, standing before him in grey yoga pants and a faded band shirt, her hair half-smoothed, half-frizzy from the damp night air. He’d tear off her clothes with his teeth right now if he could, and bury himself so deep inside her she wouldn’t have to look up to see the stars. The wild fantasy is enough to make his head spin._

 

 _“I still want you, but that’s not what’s important, is it?” he asks rhetorically, enjoying how his words drop like a coin in her face anyway. “Like I said, I’m here to find out what it is_ you _want. Regardless of what we_ were _, nobody gives something without expecting to be paid back for it, and you let me go. You have to understand I can’t turn myself in, it’s too late for that.”_

 

_He stalks toward her again, willing away the instinct to touch her gently, ease her into him and watch for the moment when she gives in. Kylo is good at mind games like this, but Rey is the last person he wants to play with. There’s every chance he’ll lose sight of the line and find himself the one with soft, broken pieces at the end of it. Instead, he dips his head so he’s almost uncomfortably in her space, and lowers his voice to something dark and sultry._

 

_“But if my answers aren’t enough for you, maybe I can pay you back some other way,” he purrs, and he’s not surprised when her expression sours, but he won’t lie to himself and say he isn’t disappointed._

 

***

 

“You must be out of your goddamn mind if you think that’s ever gonna happen again,” she says but stays where she is. She should put some distance between them but she’s petrified, limbs unresponsive to her brain on red alert. How he managed for the second time to catch her like a deer in the headlights in their confrontation, confounds her.

 

It’s because he’s too _close_ , she thinks and what he said about still wanting her rings in her ears like an echo. Is she really surprised? Seeing as she so very clearly still wants him, she shouldn’t be. But what’s to be done about it now? She’ll never do that again, couldn’t if she wanted. It would be fraternizing with the enemy in the basest sense of the word and as it is, no one even knows they’d been sleeping together in the first place - or that they’d even met again. Her reputation was stellar and pure so far, she wouldn’t risk that; her career and likely her life in freedom to boot for this.

 

So she stands, stubbornly close to him after he’s dipped his head low and the cadence of his voice makes her breath catch and her heart run away from her but she keeps still, trying hard for an unfazed appearance. She senses that it annoys him, her resistance, her pretend nonchalance at his proximity. He must know it’s bullshit but he can not fail to notice her resolve.

 

It would be so easy now, so quick, she could just turn her head and would be kissing him but she can’t. He is a criminal and she has Finn. God, _Finn_ , lying in her bed several stories beneath her soundly asleep without a clue what’s going on. She can’t do this to him. None of it. Yet here she is, at this wretched stalemate with that man she can’t pluck from her heart who fashions himself Kylo Ren now. What is she going to do with him?

 

“And you’d have to be out of your mind to let a mass murderer run free,” he says lightly, though it rings a bit false. “But it’s a crazy world we live in, isn’t it, Rey?”

“I don’t -,” she starts and wants to rebut him but she can’t. “You’re not a mass murderer, you’re a hitman, there’s a difference.”

He almost laughs at her and he’s more than right to. Why she feels the urge to defend him even now is beyond them both.

“Barely,” he says mystifyingly and she wants to punch him. She glances up to look into his eyes and almost goes cross-eyed because he’s so close. She can’t think.

“I’m really trying here,” she says and wants so badly for him to tell her this is all a cruel joke, a wicked, elaborately staged prank but of course it isn’t.

 _J_ _ust say anything_ , she thinks, _anything to redeem yourself_ . _Anything hopeful or if not that then something so horrible I can let you go_.

 

“I’m not a good man, Rey,” he mutters, knowing somehow what she needs from him. “Tell me what you’ll have me do, something I _can_ do so we’re even and then you can go back to that guy in your bed.”

His lips snarl at the word “guy” and his distaste of the fact that she is with someone is palpable. It rubs her entirely the wrong way, the sense of possessiveness emanating from him like that. It changes her gears and she’s momentarily furious.

“I want nothing from you,” she says like a petulant child and glares at him, trying to make the lie sound true to both of them. _Except everything_ , she thinks because of course it doesn’t take.

 

For half a heartbeat, her spite and provocation boom in the still air and his features harden with vindictiveness. Ben snaps forward, like a rubber band. He is too fast for her to react in any way, locking her jaw and neck under his big hand with a fervent grab. Their lips connect for the first time in a year and his hunger, his intensity is still exactly the same. Immediate and rough, he pushes his tongue into her mouth, as if he was marking his territory. Stupidly, she kisses him back because everything is spinning and her body heeds no more command from her raging mind. It’s all still there, this whole pool of flaming desire that chars her soul and senses. It’s just been sitting untapped in the back of her head, waiting to weave through her again and for a wild moment, she embraces it, welcomes it all back into her bloodstream.

 

Too soon though, he pulls back as roughly as he dove in, because this wasn’t a kiss, this was a _point_ he made.

“You were never good at lying to me,” he growls with tense control but his features are unhinged, cheeks flush and eyes clouded with something that could as well be insanity.

Rey punches him in the chest and pushes him away from her, her lips burning as if they were gasoline and his a matchstick.

“Leave,” she grits out, and he looks abruptly as if he’s won something, features smug for a heartbeat before he takes a deep breath, straightening to his full height.

“If you ever need anything, I’ll be there,” he says stubbornly, face impassive again. “There’s a burner phone in your mailbox. You can reach me with that. I owe you and I won’t forget it.”

 

She clenches her jaw, willing her face into a mask of reproach and repugnance and Ben makes note of it, taking the cue. He spins on his heel, the black coat he wears swinging with the momentum and he nearly well _stomps_ off as if every step would make a dent in the concrete. He doesn’t look back. _Good_. Rey thinks she might crack open if he did.

 

***

 _Kylo makes his exit fast and hard, knowing if he doesn’t, he’ll do something unforgivable. He’s known addiction and the weakness it creates in him, and Rey is nothing like that ever was. Where the drugs made him blessedly numb, Rey’s touch lights him up from the inside until it’s a burning, writhing agony not to push for more. He’d known it before he kissed her, but he’d thought he was stronger, and she’d deserved it. It is ugly and despicable, how deep down inside he feels like she_ belongs _to him but he can’t get rid of it, only try and push it down._

 

 _It’s gratifying to know he can still shake her. It’s a filthy lie that she does not still feel it too, that the_ boy _in her apartment could even come close to what Kylo and Rey were together. If he’s riled from their brief kiss, he wonders what state Rey is in. She’d pushed him away so hard as if her sanity depended on it, and so he’ll go, but there was no disguising the want in her expression._

 

 _He thinks about it all the way to her mailbox. Wonders if the heat from her eyes reached down to her panties - he’d always been able to work her up fast. Those few stolen nights tangled up in her pristine sheets, bending her to his shape until she cried out and crumbling in her in turn, come alive in his memory. She’d always been so willing, so ready for him. Soaking wet each and every time he’d snake his fingers beneath her underwear, even if he’d only so much as whispered in her ear before. It had felt impossibly good being wanted, being_ needed _this way. Desperately and passionately. And he’d forget who he was and what he did wrapped up in her like that. Did he get her there tonight? Did he manage to make her remember how foolishly she longed for him? Is she shivering right now, yearning for release, shifting where she stands for just a hint of_ friction _?_

 

_He indulges the thought with abandon, imagining vividly what she might do if that’s the case. If she can’t sleep because of just the one kiss from him. If she’ll wake her boyfriend to play the substitute or if Rey, the good federal agent, will be even now trying to keep silent while she touches herself to the thought of a wanted man._

 

_He’s nearly throbbing in his pants by the time he makes it back to his car, and Kylo has his hand shoved down the waistband when his phone rings._

_He groans, contemplating letting it go, then wrenches his hand back out and picks up._

_“What?” he snaps, and Hux’s voice comes over the line asking where the hell he is. “Out.”_

 

 _He hangs up without a further word, pushes any inkling of Hux so far it fades into oblivion and thinks back to Rey. Thinks about how she kissed him back, because_ fuck _, she did, and jerks off to it quick and messy, ignoring his phone out of spite when it goes off again. Kylo isn't nearly done for the night. Cleaning himself up with perfunctory, detached motions, he calls Hux back and endures his useless bitching for a handful of seconds before getting to the point._

 

_“Listen,” he interrupts Hux’s tirade. “I haven’t given a shit what you have to say for a long time, so unless you’ve got something important, I have work to do.”_

_“I’m calling on Leader Snoke’s behalf,” Hux sneers down the line. “We should have received a call from a certain diplomat by now.”_

_“Working on it,” Kylo mutters, starting his car and heading toward the part of town he's actually supposed to be in._

_“And what business were you on before now?” He sounds like Kylo still owes him any sort of explanation, as if he still has a shred of authority over him, it’s laughable and infuriating at the same time._

 

_“None of yours.” He’s not sure if it comes across the phone, but Kylo is vividly imagining how it would feel to lay out and punch Hux’s annoying face in._

_“Careful, Ren,” he says before hanging up, “Wouldn’t want your personal_ business _interfering with your orders.”_

 

_Kylo throws the phone somewhere into the void of his backseat, knowing he’ll regret it when he has to hunt it down later, but not caring. He still has to make the thirty minute drive to San Tekka’s upper class pent house, fighting city traffic. His evening has been trying, leaving Kylo with even less patience than usual, speeding and breaking at least two traffic laws._

 

_By the time he gets there, Kylo is in no mood to sweet talk the doorman, so he slips the man a few bills instead and finds himself on San Tekka’s floor within minutes. The old man is less than cooperative, but Snoke wants him alive and scared, not bleeding out on his expensive carpet, so Kylo only shoots him in the thigh._

 

_“You have a meeting tomorrow afternoon,” he says for the third time. He hates repeating himself. Hopefully, San Tekka gets it this time, but through all the wailing and clutching at his leg, Kylo can’t be sure. He crouches so that he’s on the man’s level and snaps his fingers a few inches from his weathered face._

 

 _“Do you understand me?” San Tekka glowers at him, but stops his racket. “I’m going to take that as a yes,” Kylo drawls, “and should you miss that meeting, I’ll be back. Do_ not _make me come back here. I have other things to do.”_

_He flicks the business card he’d been given to deliver at San Tekka, watches it stick to the splatter where his thigh is bleeding sluggishly and finds it oddly amusing. There’s a time, a date, and a location in black block letters written on one side. Kylo has it half memorized just from carrying it around, but he won’t be there._

 

_Snoke is only just bringing San Tekka in for some new arrangement and he likes to use Kylo sparingly when they don’t know him. Now that the FBI has a bead on him, things might change, but Kylo has been something of a ghost enforcer for years. He’s comfortable in the shadows, likes when the people he’s sent after have no idea what he will or won’t do._

 

 _Job done for the night, Kylo heads out and back to the empty space he calls home. It’s really just an apartment with provided furniture and not much else. There’s no point in dressing it up if he might have to leave at the drop of a hat. The one indulgence he allows himself wherever he’s living is a decent bed. It’s always the same brand, same mattress, same sheets anywhere he goes. He’s spent too many years of his life in beds that weren’t_ his _or without a bed at all, and if he’s got the money, he can spend it on copies of the same mattress if he so pleases._

 

 _He falls onto it face first, punches the pillows into shape and pries his shoes off with his feet so he doesn’t have to move. Fuck this_ day _. There’s not much Kylo likes less than failure, and despite walking away with Rey more visibly frustrated than himself, he didn’t get what he wanted. He didn’t get_ anything _he wanted, in fact._

 

 _He’s still in the wind with her, doesn’t know where any of this is leading, and now he’s put himself in contact with a federal agent as well as likely managed to make her want his balls on a silver platter more than she already had. It’s stupid, tactically speaking. But_ whatever _, Kylo’s done plenty of stupid things in his life, and it’s not like he’s going to stop being a fuckup now. He just wishes he’d gotten something out of their meeting besides a heap of mental and sexual frustration. His first orgasm of the night had only left him more keyed up than anything, so evidently jerking off as some sort of remedy is probably a bust so he doesn’t attempt it again._

 

_A year ago, he’d already be blissed out by now, mindless and boneless, and the desire to just fall back into bad habits is strong tonight. He’s been stepping backward all day, and he can feel the pull to just give in. Just this once. The only nights he hadn’t used back then were those he spent with her - because he’d wanted to be sharp and aware with her - for all the good it had done him._

 

_Rolling over with an aggravated noise, Kylo sits up, strips off his shirt and drops to the floor, hands forming a diamond and starting what is sure to be at least a few dozen reps of pushups. If his mind won’t shut down, he can at least exhaust himself. It’s been his fall back for so long, he has to push the limits of what he can make his body do in order to tire himself, but it’s worth it not to fall into that black hole again._

 

_By the time he falls asleep, Kylo is bleary-eyed and sweaty, but he passes out almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, his sleep dreamless._

 

_He sleeps through the morning, not waking until it’s long past noon, as per usual. Provided San Tekka actually sees reason and isn’t begging for a new hole in his other leg, Kylo really doesn’t have much he needs to do for the rest of the day. He’s on-call, obviously, at all times, but Snoke’s dealings with San Tekka have taken up his attention for at least the next two days, so Kylo is free to do as he pleases. Honestly, he hates these kind of days, so he winds up calling Phasma and agreeing to help her collect one of her wayward boys and the four and half thousand dollars he owes her._

 

_Kylo doesn’t miss the days when he was still working his way up, and he decidedly doesn’t miss when he’d had Phasma’s job. Rounding up junkies and dealers and keeping them in line hadn’t been all too terrible when Kylo had always been only hours from the next hit himself, but through the lense of sobriety, they’re pathetic and he hates himself a little bit more in retrospect. His bias maybe makes him go a bit hard on the guy, who nearly pisses himself when Kylo and Phasma find him and he holds the man off the ground by his ankles._

 

_Phasma almost rolls her eyes at him for the stunt, but the man immediately starts babbling in a helpful direction and hands over three grand of the four and a half when they follow him back to his shithole apartment. Kylo assists with a couple more transactions, none of them requiring muscle, but none the less expedited by his silent, glaring presence. Phasma can handle her boys with no trouble, of course, she doesn’t need him. But she knows he gets restless and she’s willing to let him knock a few heads if he needs it. Most of the people Kylo’s associated with these days are crap human beings, Phasma being the exception._

 

_When they part ways, Kylo doesn’t think about where he’s going until he’s getting off the train at the stop closest to Rey’s apartment, and when he realizes it, he shrugs and goes with it. It’s not like he can royally screw himself that much more anyway. He can already tell he’s going to keep coming here when he’s wound up like this, like a rubber band pulled tight and released, falling back to the shape it knows. It’s stupid and dangerous for both of them but when had that ever stopped him before?_

 

_He doesn’t have anything on him to catch her attention, though he’s not sure he would try if he did. Instead, he scales the fire escape of the building across from hers and camps out. Before long, she’s outside on the balcony again, chain smoking and staring off into space. If Kylo were one for peace, this would be a peaceful moment. As it is, he’s tense. He can feel it building under his skin, the need to act, and breathes through it._

 

_Rey is relaxed across the street, arms resting on the railing while she watches the cars go by. At this hour, in any other city, there wouldn’t be anyone about to watch, but New York never stops. Hidden in the shadows, Kylo disappears against the backdrop of a city in constant motion and he can enjoy the view all he wants._

 

_If he’s tactically stupid, Rey must be a goddamn moron. He doesn’t recognize it at first, but after sitting there for a few minutes, Kylo sees her fiddle with something on the railing near her and realizes it’s the phone he gave her. It’s an outdated model, cheap and silver, and Rey flips it open for a moment, staring at the screen before closing it again. He wonders idly if she’d hear it ring across the street if she were to call, what she would do if she saw him._

 

_It probably says something about him that he almost wants to get caught. Their stalemate isn’t even old yet, and he finds himself bored with it. Inactivity has never suited him, and he’s contemplating leaving if he can’t bring himself to actually contact her again when she stubs out her cigarette and turns to go back inside._

 

_He’s standing, taking it as his cue to go, when the light flicks on and he realizes he can see the outline of her in her bedroom window. Her shadow moves across the room, vanishing briefly before she’s walking back the way she came and, from the looks of it, peeling her shirt over her head. Kylo can’t see the details, but he can see the shape of her arms arching up, dragging the shirt off, and he flashes back to watching her make the same motions from where she’d been knelt above him, his fingers locked around her hipbones._

 

_There’s only so far he can lean out on the fire escape, but he’s braced with his elbows on the railing so the slight breeze catches in his hair where he’s over empty air. There’s something about watching her like this, only the suggestion of her, when his imagination can fill in the gaps perfectly. She shimmies out of her pants next, nothing deliberately sexy about it, though the idea that she doesn’t know he can see is strangely intoxicating. This is private in a way few things are, and Kylo feels more like a thief than he ever has in his life._

 

 _She moves to, presumably, dispose of her clothing in another corner of the room and Kylo’s mind fills in the blanks. She’ll be in practical underwear, something white or flesh-toned or at least hopelessly mismatched, her skin as tan as ever. He watches her long, slim legs walk to the shadow of her dresser and knows what they feel like against his palms and his waist, knows what the soft skin on the insides of her thighs tastes like. He swallows hard, tilting his hips forward to meet the resistance of the railing, feel it hard and firm against the bulge in his pants and_ sighs _._

 

_Her arms go back in an awkward reach for the clips of her bra, back arching, and he’s torn between laughing and not blinking for the duration. She can make that move look good, but alone in her room, unaware, her arms bend at strange angles and she dangles the bra from her finger for a second before tossing it away. It’s a silly thing, appealing to parts of him that aren’t just interested in what she has under her clothes, and he cracks a smile that feels foreign in its wholesomeness on his face there in the dark where no one can see._

 

_His enjoyment is cut off abruptly when, not a moment after Rey has slid what appears to be a massive shirt over her shoulders, the outline of Finn appears. He walks in unhurried, and Kylo can see the small jump Rey gives when his hand touches her shoulder. She whirls around and Kylo can imagine the innocent smile on her face, his arms slipping around her waist while hers go up to rest on his shoulders. They’re of a height so that her forearms and hands dangle behind his head in a casual rest, her hips moving slightly as they speak._

 

 _Kylo pushes away from the railing when Finn’s head leans toward hers, a dark, seething rage billowing up in him. That_ worm _shouldn’t be allowed to touch her at all. If he’s being fair, Kylo knows close to nothing about Finn, but he’s decidedly not interested in being fair. Rey has been his since that very first night and she can try lying it away as hard as she wants but if he set out for it, something as petty as a_ boyfriend _won’t do anything to resist giving in to what he knows she feels. This boy hadn’t meant anything a year ago, and he shouldn’t mean anything more now. But still, it’s that inconsequential boy who’s holding her right now, him who sleeps in her bed, him who get’s to touch her whichever way she allows. It’s enough to make any mild-tempered man tremble with jealousy and Kylo can by no account be called thus. He can’t watch this, can’t have his brain keep supplying the images. He pries his hands away from the railing he’s grabbed, the rust sticking to his skin where it crumbled under his grip, and leaves._

 

_Taking the ladders down to the street, Kylo acknowledges the itch under his skin for what it is - he wants Finn gone, and just gone isn’t good enough. He wants to see the guy destroyed for touching what’s really his, and Kylo wishes he didn’t know he could easily make that happen with no remorse. Nothing has changed from last year. Kylo may be clear-headed and disgusted with the corner he’s backed himself into, but he’s still that person. As before, the only thing keeping him from tipping that delicate scale from ‘hitman’ to ‘murderer’ is Rey._

 

_She would never forgive him for killing Finn, and he could never make her believe it was an accident. He knows, in the part of him that doesn’t look when new ‘merchandise’ shows up in tears and tattered clothing, that he should feel bad. He should be able to decide committing premeditated murder of his own volition is wrong. And yet…_

  
_He won’t actually kill Finn, or he would have done it already. Be it some shred of a conscience left inside him or the unquestionable knowledge that it would hurt Rey, deeply, he won’t do it. It doesn’t stop the desire under his skin like a living thing, hungry for his own brand of justice, but it gives him enough peace of mind to make it to the sidewalk, back to his stop, and onto the train. The car he steps into is empty, camera-less, so no one is there to witness his knuckles meeting the reinforced windows in the flickering light of the subway, no one the wiser when he walks home with blood seeping over his fingers._


	2. CHAPTER TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the plot thickens... Rey's POV written by EllieCarina and Kylo's by ViciousRhythm, with some crossovers as we do.
> 
> Your thoughts and comments are as always appreciated and bring us great joy!
> 
> [SONG]: Cough Syrup by Young the Giant (https://open.spotify.com/track/4Tfe8Uu9faFdWRiZbpvpXd)

**CHAPTER TWO: **[If I Could Find A Way To See This Straight (I’d Run Away)]****

****“Well, that’s what I told him, but he never listens anyway,” the woman says into her phone and her heels click on the floor as she walks out of the restroom. Rey is alone now, washing her hands and trying not to look at herself in the mirror.

She has spent the last month in some sort of haze, working overtime to get leads on current First Order operations as if she didn’t have a burner phone in the bottom of her drawer with Kylo Ren on speed dial. It’s terrible what she is doing, which is nothing about that phone. She should have turned it in, turned _him_ in and done her fucking job. But she hasn’t and for so long now that it’s silly to pretend she ever will.

How did he know? How had he known that she wouldn’t do anything about it? Was she still so easy to guess? Like back when she was eight and he’d know every last time that kid Jay made fun of her in class from just looking at her furrowed brow? Or like back when he stole into her bedroom and could all but read what she wanted him to do from her body? She catches her own eyes and sees how her cheeks flush with the memories of those nights yet again. She can’t shake them and it’s a familiar sensation, how pushy they are, invasive and stubborn. She has been here before, back when he first up and left, before she knew he was Kylo now, but she’d thought that whole pathetic episode of her life was done with. But then of course he came back. And kissed her on that rooftop like he needs her to _breathe_. Grunting, she shakes her head at her reflection and turns away to one of those air-blade machines that hangs on the far wall. It’s hissing so loud it temporarily drowns out the thoughts in her head which is a very welcome side-effect to getting her hands dry.

She trudges back to the bullpen, settling back in at her desk to review some more case files of petty crimes that might connect into some bigger picture but finds she can concentrate no better than before she took her bathroom break. At work, no one is the wiser of her secret rendezvous with the enemy and neither is Finn at home and she feels like a fraud in both situations for different reasons. At her desk she feels like she is betraying her country and in her bed she feels like she is betraying the man she should love more than to pretend he is someone else when she closes her eyes.

It’s disgusting and she hates herself every time it happens, to the point where she has told Finn she was too tired for sex so many times now, he’s beginning to feel a little put off. She can see it on him over breakfast or when she gets out of the shower. He wants her and she should want him but all she can think of when he puts his hands on her is how she likes them there a little less than before.

 _It’s just a phase_ , she tries to tell herself, _you’re just confused, it’ll pass_.

But it’s been a month and she can still feel Ben’s lips burn on her mouth as if the kiss was only minutes old and she is afraid. Afraid that she’ll never stop feeling this, afraid that Ben will come back for her and secretly _terrified_ that he won’t.

This is the other line of thought that makes her take the phone out whenever Finn is otherwise occupied and turn it over and over in her hand. She could call Ben, not to do her job but for _herself_. It’s a dark and shameful desire, but every time when the silver cell sits there in her palm with only the one programmed number in it, her brain spins a crazed fantasy of what would happen if she’d just call him. She’d meet him at a motel, somewhere out of town, in Jersey or over on Staten Island and indulge this itch for him in her groin and her mind. But she’ll never do it, never take that step because knowing him and knowing herself most of all, she wouldn’t survive it. And she is not a cheater.

When she first started sleeping with Ben, Finn had been a casual “Let’s get beers and play pool together, while I pretend I don’t notice you like-like me” kind of friend. And then, when he was there for her when her life spiraled a bit out of control after she found out she was hung up on an underground crime boss, without ever prying for a proper explanation, Rey had given in to his kindness and now they are a thing, living together even. It’s a stable relationship based on mutual care and affection. It’s a good thing. _It’s a good thing_. And she needs to stop messing it up.

By the time she makes it home, she is back in the part of the cycle where she believes the little voice in her head that says she’s over it and she can move on now, and she hasn’t even taken the phone out from the drawer, resolved to forget all about it, when it _rings_.

Rey jumps from where she sits on the bed, watching some mindless, un-funny sitcom and doesn’t know what to do. She thanks the gods that Finn is out playing with his band, so he can’t see how she darts to her drawer and produces the tiny thing from its semi-hiding place beneath her socks as if it was on fire. It just keeps on ringing and she holds it gingerly, like it will explode any second. Somehow she hasn’t even thought about the fact that this device isn’t a one-way-communicator and that if she can contemplate calling him, he’ll be able to call her as well. Again she does the opposite of what she should be doing - which is throw the phone out of the window - and answers the call.

“Rey,” he says instead of hello and his voice sounds mechanical and distorted through the connection, his very own brand of urgency behind it. It’s still the same kind she knows from memories of him telling her to slow down on the bike he’d taught her to drive. “I need to see you.”

“No,” she says immediately, more reflex than conscious decision.

“‘ _No_ ’ doesn’t do anything here, I know where you live, remember?” he says but sounds disengaged from the taunt. “But we need a different location anyway, it’s gonna take some time and I can’t have your _boyfriend_ walking in on us. Do you know the Cantina Inn just off the interstate?”

“You’re insane,” she says into the phone, incredulous in face of his sheer gall, “or _drunk_ if you think I’ll come have sex with you in some sleazy highway-motel.”

“What?” Ben’s tone of genuine surprise takes the fight out of her and crashes into her very own fantasy from earlier which she’d until now assumed he called to make a reality. “This isn’t a booty call, _Christ_. But it’s really interesting how quickly you made that jump.”

Now, Rey does want to throw the phone out of the window, and possibly herself after it.

“Well, considering your uncalled for stunt on the roof, it wasn’t exactly a leap,” she retorts but her ears burn with humiliation. It’s a very good thing that this phone isn’t equipped for face timing.

“You kissed me back,” he snaps immediately, “and God knows you didn’t pull away at all at any point after that, so I wouldn’t bring this up so readily if I were you.”

“What do you want?” She is fuming because he is right and she hates him for it.

“I need your help,” he says and _that_ stuns her into silence, “but I need to tell you in person. I’ll text you with the details tomorrow. I need you to meet me at that motel and hear me out.”

“What makes you think I’ll do anything at all for you?” she asks, not sure if she actually wants his answer.

“Because this isn’t about me,” he says, “Hux wants to bring in _children_.”

That does it.

_***_

_The silence on the other end of the line tells him Rey wasn’t expecting him to say anything like that._

_“_ Kids _?” Her voice is incredulous when she speaks up. “What do you mean?”_

_“I can’t explain everything right now,” he says, shoving frustrated fingers into his hair and hoping no one will come after him before he can finish the call. “Just meet me, alright?”_

_“Okay,” she says after a small pause. “But this better be worth my while, Ben.”_

_He doesn’t wait to see if she’ll hang up on him, he’s running short on time anyway. With her agreement, there’s no reason to drag out the call and risk someone catching him at it. The excuse of a smoke break is flimsy, but Kylo has the advantage that these men don’t know him and have no idea he’s never been a smoker._

_They’re still standing in a loose circle when he comes back in, not bothering to be quiet about it. Every man in this room is terrified of him, for various reasons, and they all snap to attention when he enters with a slam of the door. If nothing else, that is gratifying._

_On the one hand, it means they’ll cooperate with little need for him to show much effort, but on the other hand, it means they’re probably a bunch of spineless cowards. Perfect for Snoke and Hux’s operation with the docks._

_“Gentlemen,” he starts, not having to adopt the air of superiority and disgust. “Are there any further questions, or are we done here?”_

_“Uh.” Kylo’s gaze snaps to a man whose name he doesn’t care to remember. The increased attention is enough to make the man pale._

_“Nevermind,” he mumbles, eyes to the floor._

_“That’s what I thought.” Kylo lets himself posture a bit so as not to seem hurried, does another sweep of the guard tower they’re meeting in. From the video screens, he can see any given area of the docks, cycling through the main sections every few seconds._

_“We’ll be in touch,” he says when he’s finished his needless turn about the room. “Until then, your discretion is appreciated.”_

_There’s a chorus of indistinct muttering and shuffling in agreement, and Kylo sweeps out of the room and down the stairs. Tonight’s mission had been simple, even if his response to it was not. Meet with a handful of guards at the docks, ensure cooperation for when shipments start arriving. Nothing messy or even challenging. It’d only been the knowledge of what - or rather_ who _\- is being shipped that has him rattled._

_True, Kylo has been party to plenty of deals with human merchandise, but even he has a line, and that line is drawn at kids. Adults are scum, he’s come to accept that over his life. If they get hurt along the way, they probably either deserve it or they’ll find a way out. Humanity has a way of doing that. Children, however, rarely deserve it or make it out. He’s seen enough examples of the filth that gets spit out when a child is destroyed to know he can’t contribute to it._

_All his other sins fall by the wayside at the thought of it and his gut roils at the thought of the darkness this will likely peel back up for him, but Kylo has to meet with Rey. It’s risky and it might end up with the both of them worse off, but it’s necessary. He knows with unshakeable certainty Rey will see that as well. It’s just what they’re going to_ do _about it that has him hitting a wall._

_He sends Rey a text with the address, as well as a time, before starting his car. It’s close enough to tomorrow, and he’s so on edge he knows it’ll be useless to try to get anything else done tonight. He’s fairly certain he’ll try to take Hux’s head off if he has to speak to the man, but a text with confirmation of his success with tonight’s endeavors should be enough. His phone doesn’t go off in the hour it takes him to blow off some steam by driving too fast, so all must be well._

_He’s in Jersey by the time he stops the car, parked beside a murky lake in a neighborhood he’s never been in before. The shore alone is enough to prove where he is, littered with debris, cigarette butts and broken glass. There’s a man-made island in the center of the lake, half hidden by fog, and Kylo stares out at it for an indeterminate amount of time. Sunrise will be in only a couple of hours, and the fog will surely burn off by then, but for now, it’s a shadowy form in the distance._

_Kylo has always liked the idea of islands. The notion that you could find yourself in a place where no one knows you or could reach you appeals in a strange way. It feels like his whole life, Kylo has been trying to get to a place where what he_ was _is less important than what he_ is. _It’s a wonder he’s so fixated on Rey, he thinks with a touch of irony. She’s the strongest link he has to his past, but she’s also probably the best thing he’s ever been able to touch._

_He retreats to his car as the sky starts to lighten, and he watches the sunrise burn off the fog as he predicted. Rey’s not supposed to meet him for another few hours, but he makes it to the Cantina Inn some time around noon, purchasing a room for the night in cash and leaving a message for Rey at the desk. He doesn’t expect to sleep between now and when she arrives, but all the same, he lays out on the bed and only wakes up to the sound of a knock at the door._

***

Rey can not believe she is actually doing this. The redundancy of the thought “You should have brought in reinforcements” is annoying, banging around in her head like a child throwing a tantrum. And yes, she should have, like she should have at any point during this last month. But she is there nonetheless in that crappy motel with her heart in her mouth and her panties in a twist for numerous reasons.

She doesn’t really know what to expect, doesn’t know what story he is willing to tell her or if it will be the truth. She is wary of his motives and feels like she might regret coming here without back-up or telling anyone where she went in the first place. Finn thinks she’s at work and her team leader Poe thinks she is taking a personal day. If anybody found out about this, one would assume she was having an illicit affair or something. As she knocks on the door of his room again because he doesn’t answer it, she thinks it would be easier if he was just some random scandalous screw, something she could get out of her system but he isn’t and she can’t and so everything is still horrible.

She only knows that if what he says about the First Order expanding to anything involving children is true, she will need to act. She pulls up her nose and clears her throat, anything to ready herself when she hears the thud of his feet inside the room, approaching. His face will throw her off again, she knows it before she sees it and she ends up right again.

He scans her features, then glances past her shoulder to see if she came in a cop car and she shifts into his line of view to save him the trouble.

“Alone, unarmed,” she says and turns her empty palms up, having left her Glock in her glove compartment.

“You need to stop doing that,” he grunts and lets her in. “It’s reckless, keep your gun on you.”

The room is stuffy and she wants to air it out because it smells like him sleeping and it’s doing things to her body she can not have it do. Beside herself, she takes a deep, gulping breath he can not be missing and disguises it as a cough. If she could she would dissolve into the air, become a part of his scent, drift away with it. But as it is, she must treat it as the distraction that it is and opens the window after he has closed the door.

“So,” she starts, going for a mix of abrasiveness and impatience that might make him get to the point quick. She leans against the table set up in front of the window and watches him slump down on the bed that is definitely too small for him.

“I suppose I don’t have to give you the full history, but what you need to know is the business is expanding in a decidedly underage direction,” he says evenly, as if it’s not the worst thing someone has ever said.

“What do you mean by that exactly?” She needs him so say the words, to stop with the allusions and flat out say what the First Order is up to, not so much for her sake but for his own, so he understands what he helps them do. But something other than guilt flickers across his features as he snaps up from the bed.

“Hold still. I’m not having the troops storm in as soon as I get specific,” he says and crosses the distance between them in what is a medium-stride to him and without pause or question shoves his hand between the buttons of her shirt, touching her skin with his fingertips so lightly, her lungs deflate at top speed and then he proceeds to feel up and down her back.

“Show me you’re not wired,” he says but his voice catches when he must notice how close they are suddenly.

“I am not,” she wiggles away from him because she can’t think. He smells like bed and sleep and himself and he indulges his search of her, even now that he must’ve felt she is not carrying a wire, he just keeps touching her. “Ben!”

He lifts his head to her then, and she can pinpoint the moment where his pupils shrink and he remembers who they are again. “You’re stupid enough to show up with no weapon, no backup, no link to anything? Are you kidding me?!”

“I…,” she wants to deadpan and say something clever and cutting but can’t think of anything. So she goes with the truth that sounds frankly a little bit pathetic. “I trust you not to hurt me.”

“That’s extremely foolish,” he stares at her for a second, caught between confused and frustrated and then shrugs in a terribly arrogant and entirely unlikeable way, “but you’ve proven yourself a pretty poor decision maker recently.”

“Hey, look, I’m no expert on asking feds for personal favours concerning my dark and twisted profession,” she starts, moving away from the desk because he is still too close and she can still smell his skin and she hates him with a passion because it isn’t _fair_ , “but it’s probably not the best idea to shit all over the person you want something from.”

“Fine,” he huffs and crosses his arms. “You trust me, I trust you. It’s a beautiful thing. I guess we can get to it then. I’m sure you have a rap sheet that includes something on trafficking?”

So he really wants to do it all nonplussed like that and passes the ball to her.

 _Fine_. Two can play that game.

“The First Order is very big on it,” she says snidely and adds because she is petty and he deserves it: “And I recall the name Kylo Ren being thrown around a while in Florida in connection to some mysterious disappearances. You made the rounds, cleaning up, didn’t you? Handling disgruntled pimps who wanted their girls back…”

“I was playing the part of a repo man _at best_ , but that’s- Not the point,” he says irritatedly, interrupting himself, and she wonders if he is angry with her as an entire person or with what she is saying. “Point is, that branch of the business is expanding. Snoke and Hux are organizing a move to bring in foreign children. All I know for now is it’s in the works. I was asked to oversee some business on the docks and I caught wind of what exactly they’re bringing in.”

“‘ _What_ ’ as in children,” she says, again emphasizing what he isn’t willing to acknowledge, that it’s human beings he talks of as if they were potato sacks. “They are collecting kids to do what exactly? You don’t need to get too graphic...but the intent is to do with these kids what they do with the women?”

“I don’t know. I told you,” and he seems genuinely unwilling to even imagine, let alone say it out loud, “all I heard was what the supply is, not where it’s going. They’re playing this one pretty close to the chest. It’s never been international before now.”

“Stop saying “supply”,” she snaps because she has had about enough of him dehumanizing the victims the First Order creates. “They are _people_ , all of them. Not just the kids...This is disgusting, how do you live with yourself?”

“Barely,” he says and his sharp sincerity throws her off her game. “It’s not like I _like_ this. You look at it like an exchange of goods and maybe you sleep at night and no one’s there to blow your brains out in the morning, alright?”

It’s too much. His words and worst of all his face and she realises that he has been living with this for years, that he has backed himself into a corner where he is partly responsible for so much suffering, he couldn’t sleep at night if he didn’t turn these people they hurt into inanimate objects. He looks away and she can’t tell if he is ashamed of himself or ashamed that she sees him like this, in any case, it propels her forward and she moves back to where he stands by the table and takes his hand.

His skin is cold and still clammy and she knows he must be very uncomfortable. She splays out her fingers on his soft and calloused skin and squeezes. It’s a gesture of kindness, affection and solace and he doesn’t deserve it. His eyes bore into a spot on her shoulder like he understands as much. He draws a little broken breath that hits Rey like a train on a track.

“What do you want me to do now?” she asks him and lets go of his hand, moving away again to create distance. “With this information?”

“Come up with something?” he says and barely looks at her. He catches his own hand, interlocking his fingers in what must be an unconscious response to what she did and looks like he dissociates for just a second there. She wonders briefly if anyone has offered him any sort of intimacy or sympathy in all his years with the Order.

“You’re supposed to be good at this side of things,” he flails, hands not sticking to their form. “I know how to run it, breaking it down is harder.”

So he doesn’t have a plan at all. _Nice_.

“Well, I can’t simply take this ‘a’ at face value without checking to confirm your story first, “ she says, “and ‘b’ can’t bring it to my superiors because they’ll wanna know how on earth I came by those plans, especially if they’re on the hush hush even inside the First Order. You’d probably be made and I’d go to prison.”

“Why would I make this up?” he asks her incredulously and he’s right of course, there is no reason for him to lie. “And I can promise you there’s no one to confirm it with who wouldn’t shoot you on sight. I can’t make up a mole… I’d have to bring someone in fresh, just to throw them under the bus, and I doubt you’d just be fine with that.”

Something clicks into place in her head as he talks and the puzzle pieces come together in some sort of unfortunate revelation. _This could work_ , she thinks.

“Unless you bring _me_ in.”

“What?” He takes a double take of her face and his head shakes on its own.

“Unless it would be me you brought in,” she repeats, knowing he’ll catch her drift eventually. “You said you wanted to find me a year ago to see if I needed help. Let’s say I did. Let’s say you found me after years of getting into shit and now you’re offering me a way up. Would your people believe that?”

“It’s possible…” She can see the wheels turn in his head, understand her plan and then meet resistance. He doesn’t like this one bit. “The whole organization is pretty evenly split between ambition and desperation. But there’s no way you’ll be able to handle it. I don’t think _I_ can watch you try. Earning their trust isn’t pretty. And what would you tell your people? I had a sudden, inspiring change of heart? They won’t buy it.”

“I am not made of spun sugar, Ben,” she counters, irritated by his tone, like she is still nine years old and always over-estimating her abilities. She continues and let’s it _burn_. “I handled some pretty bad shit after you left me to rot in the system.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he interrupts predictably, brows furrowing.

“Save it,” she bites because she is still bitter about this and she would do well to keep remembering the fact. “The point is, trust me when I say I can handle it. But you’re right, no one will believe you suddenly came around, but they _don’t have to_. If you hadn’t found me last year, I still would’ve had the in through you as well. With the same story too. They don’t know about last year. About us. No one does.”

“Not something you want to broadcast, I guess,” he sighs, almost imperceptibly. “So, what? You let them think you’re playing me to get something on the First Order? That it’s just a shot in the dark?”

“I’ve been…” she begins but takes her sweet time to go on and admitting this because, honestly, it’s mortifying to admit to his face what his resurfacing in her world has turned her into, “- pretty riled up these last couple of months. It won’t be hard to make them think I’m grasping at straws. You got away from me, for all they know, and I have a past connection to you which would be stupid not to exploit.”

“Yeah, stupid seems about right,” he says under his breath and fire dances behind his eyes, fire she can’t place and it’s making her breath stall. “Stupid and crazy. But you know what they say, if it’s crazy enough, it might work. You’re going to have to _commit_ though. And unless we make it seem like you’re _mine_ , unquestionably, it’s not going to take. This is a long game, Rey. And you should understand what that means.”

“I understand it,” she looks at him pointedly. She’ll have to be with him, in whatever way for however long this little play of theirs holds up. Be _his_ , unquestionably. “I can pretend.”

“Sure. You can _pretend_ ,” he scoffs, lividity rumbling low underneath and he sounds bitter as he continues. “The only one who won’t be fooled is me. You must’ve been lying pretty effectively to your friends for long enough, it’s no trouble.”

“That’s not fair,” she barks and stupidly rises to the bait, pacing back and forth as she speaks, getting lost in her own frustration and the memories of him leaving that still ache dully in the back of her heart. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I would’ve paraded you around, you asshole, because _look at this wonderful thing that happened, the one good thing from my hell-childhood and he’s_ back. But no. That wasn’t realistic, was it? You know, I half thought you were ashamed of me...how you never wanted to leave my place. So don’t get down on me for pretending, you’ve done plenty of that yourself.”

Ben looks at her like a fish on land and doesn’t really have a great response for this. When he answers her, he sounds significantly younger than his years.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t like I could tell you the truth, was it?” he challenges hotly and stands up from where he’d been leaning against the table top before. “Or would you have been fine with a druggie criminal doing coke on your couch? Christ, Rey, I wasn’t in any shape to stick around if I’d _wanted_ to.”

She hadn’t consciously been aware that he’d been using when they had their fling and something about this rubs her entirely the wrong way. Also the fact that he lied to her even past all they’d been through and all that transpired between them between underneath those sheets of hers, it makes her furious like few other things ever have.

“You never gave me the chance,” she bellows accusingly, pinning him in place with a death glare. “Who knows what I would’ve done if you’d just been honest with me. I was stir-crazy in love with you.”

Her words almost echo and hang in the air between them for an uncomfortable amount of time and she isn’t sure he even knew that she’d been in love with him. That she’d loved him, hopelessly and entirely, and that for as long as it lasted, he was the best thing in the world to her.

His face is split open with the revelation, naked hope mixed with panic playing across his expression. There’s a moment where she thinks it might be possible for him to drop the act, be honest with her and come back to the man he could be, but his face shuts down in increments until he’s simply a mask of apathy. It’s a toss up which response is more painful to witness.

“Lot of good that does us now,” he says and she can practically hear how tight his chest feels as he pauses to take a breath and from the looks of it, tries to get his head on straight. “Look, I didn’t come here to rehash our mistakes, alright? I came here because you’re the only person who might be able to stop this shit show before it gets out of hand. Just be grateful your missteps are panning out for us both. If you’d actually had the balls to shoot me like you _should have_ , I suppose neither of us would have been able to head this thing off at the pass.”

This snaps Rey’s short fuse and she almost jumps into his face, thumping forward like a kid about to start a fight and she gets in his space because she can’t _think_ and he is hurting her so badly with this non-committal, detached show he puts on purely for his own, selfish benefit and she hates herself almost as much as she hates him. Because he can still hurt her like that and he can do it because she still loves him and he doesn’t get it or see how it’s killing her and it _is_. It’s eating her up like she’s a house on fire and he is burning through her until she’ll be only rubble.

“You’re unbelievable,” she says when she is so close, she could count even the faintest of freckles on his face.

“Try to believe it,” he says and pointedly stays where he is, head tilted down to her as she stands tall, still having to look up into his stupid, unflinching face and his cheeks that flush ever so slightly. “I don’t know what fantasy of me you have built up in your mind, but this is part of the reality. You don’t get to where I am without learning how to compartmentalize. If you want to actually do something about it, be my guest. I’m all for giving your crazy-ass plan a shot, but it’s _not_ going to _work_ if you can’t get yourself under control.”

 _The gall this man has! How dare he?_ She is _fuming_.

“Don’t give me that condescending shit right now, Ben,” she says and punches him in the shoulder out of sheer frustration. “I am perfectly capable of controlling myself, thank you very much. But you keep _dodging_ and dodging every time I try to talk about what happened and I need to, because if we’re going to do this and we’re going to _have_ to, then I need to know I can rely on you, to trust you blind and I can’t do that if you keep avoiding this conversation. So I suggest _you_ get _yourself_ under control and stop hiding behind your arrogance like a fucking coward.”

He’s always hated that, being called a coward and of course she has known this because she knows his buttons from childhood and she feels decidedly infantile enough to push them in her state. Of course he snaps at this and suddenly they are moving. He all but shoves her and pushes her back, away from the table and into the door until her back is pressed there flush and she has nowhere to go.

“You want to know if you can trust me, Rey?” he bellows and puts his large hands on each shoulder, pinning her in place. “You already do, otherwise you wouldn’t _be here_ , showing up with all the faith of a child that I’m a good man deep down. If you need to hear it so badly, yes, you can trust me. You’re the only thing I’ve managed not to destroy, and that only by the skin of my teeth. I’m not going to throw that away.”

He has been talking loudly, his voice raised to almost a shout and running through his entire register and then he sighs, some of the fight going out of him. His breath is hot on her cheeks and she blinks a few times, tasting the air crackle with static between them.

“If you really need me to _spell it out_ ,” he continues, “walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, both times, but I did it because you are better off without me. You’re just too stubborn to see that.”

Rey is suddenly exhausted. Why does she always wind up with him at this very place?

“I wish you didn’t think you still needed to make my decisions for me,” she says and looks at him while the weight of what she has said spreads. His face is all over the place and it hurts to keep watching it, because maybe he guesses that she sort of insinuated that there is still something left there, that it’s a continuous thing he does, negating what she might want this way.

“I can’t seem to talk to you like a rational person,” he says, wavering and his eyes search her face. “We always end up here. It’s stupid to think we can talk out everything in one day, Rey. There’s too much. But.” And now he chuckles to himself under his breath, echoing his earlier line; “You trust me, I trust you. _It’s a beautiful thing_. So are we doing this?”

“Yes,” Rey sighs because he is dodging, again. “I’ll run this by my team leader as soon as I get back into town. He might mull it over for a while but I should have the go ahead by the end of this week.”

“Alright,” Ben says and belatedly steps away from her like it’s a task to do so. “Keep that phone I gave you. I’m not...good at talking. Obviously. But I can try. I don’t know what you want that I can give you, Rey.”

Rey wants to scream because what she wants she can never have again and it’s burning beneath her fingertips, that he is so close and yet so, so far away.

“I want -” she starts and stops because she can’t even say it. And truly she doesn’t know what it is. _I want to not love you? I want to forget we ever met? I want you to kiss me right now and make love to me and tell me everything will be okay?_

“I didn’t think so,” he says flatly and takes another step away.

“Just...fine,” she puffs and reclaims some of her will-power by delving into logistics. “As soon as I’ve got the go, you need to start setting this thing up on your end. I’ll need a place to sleep, preferably somewhere close so we can keep up appearances. And you’re going to have to figure out what will sell better, me being the fucked up little sister or the fucked up woman you’re sleeping with that incidentally happens to have grown up with you.”

“I have a place,” he says, slightly more at ease now that she isn’t probing for his _feelings_. “And you’re underestimating the level of fucked up that’s acceptable here. You can certainly be both. No one’s going to believe we’re blood related, but the more complicated it seems, the less likely anyone will be to pry.”

“We’ll play it whichever way you think best,” she nods because _whatever_. It’s going to mess her up either which way, it really doesn’t matter. “And you’re going to have to actually tell me things about the First Order and what you do there. The first couple of days...we’ll need to devote that to you briefing me.”

“I can get you the cliffs notes. They’ll expect you to need to play catch up regardless,” he says and then deliberates with himself. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you should probably work on being less...ah, put together. The plan I have in mind needs someone who looks and acts like they haven’t seen the right side of a day in years.”

Rey quickly undoes her bun and smudges her eye make-up for good measure, because fuck him and how little he believes she can do this. Spitefully, she gives him the best fucked-up face she can muster and she doesn’t even have to try because it’s all real. How she looks is precisely how she feels with this conversation. She staggers forward to where he stands by the bed and lets her arm ghost over his shoulders, gives him a little wink that says ‘Look at me, I’m a hot mess’ and then lets herself fall down on the bed.

“You were saying?” She asks him in a mix of sultry and slurred and his eyes widen for just a fraction of a second.

“You’re breaking my heart, kid,” he says sarcastically, but he sort of means it. He must know deep down that this isn’t easy for her either, that it’s messing her up. But because he is a fucking psychopath, he makes fun of her.

“Fuck you,” she says and snaps out of it. Rey deliberates offering a few choice words for him but decides against it, rises and turns to leave instead. “Watch your phone, I’ll have news soon. If this goes down I’m relying on you. Don’t let me down.”

Somehow this seems to hit him hard enough that he turns away from her not to show it and when he talks to the far wall, he sounds pained and regretful.

“I won’t. Not again.”

And suddenly Rey wants to hug him again and _fuck this guy_.

“See you, Ben,” she says, because it’s all so hopeless, and leaves.

She doesn’t hear him after the door falls shut behind her, muttering to himself now that he’s alone, his heart running away from him.

“It’s not Ben anymore, Rey.”

***

Mission is a go, see you Monday.

_Kylo receives the text when he’s standing in his apartment, coming to terms with the fact that having a place in no way means he has a place that’s ready for Rey, in any way. Taking stock of his living space, minus his bedroom, there’s not much. It’s a roof and four walls, a refrigerator that sometimes manages to have food in it, his dresser, and a table left behind by the previous tenants which designates the line between where someone’s meant to sleep or eat. It’s a fairly standard studio setup, but it’s tragically barren when Kylo considers it as place to cohabitate with Rey for whatever length of time this might take._

_In comparison to the things that normally inspire negative responses in him, this one is relatively minor, but it makes him anxious and a bit depressed none the less. If he’s going to have Rey living with him, he’s going to need, at the least, a second space to sleep. Other things might be nice too, and Kylo has the disorienting thought that he can’t remember the last time he watched television, when it seems like such a normal way to pass time these days. He supposes he should probably get one of those too._

_Instead of making a list, Kylo sets out for the nearest store that might provide him with furniture and all the other things that are supposed to be in an apartment. He stalls on the problem of a second bed, vaguely entertaining the idea that maybe they’ll just share the one he has - it’s big enough - and focuses on smaller pieces first. Having never been inside an Ikea store in his life, Kylo finds the first poor sap in a uniform and demands they take him around to find absolutely everything he might need. The kid keeps trying to offer bargains until Kylo deliberately chooses the most expensive couch he lays eyes on and tells him he’ll be purchasing delivery and assembly as well._

_After that, it’s a bit quicker. The kid shows him to whole sections of kitchenware and area rugs and throw pillows and Kylo buys probably more than he actually needs. Hell, he buys more than he wants, and it’s about the time that he’s considering hand towels that he realizes he’s going a bit overboard and reigns it in. The cost is meaningless - he hasn’t spent the better part of ten years getting his hands so dirty they’ll likely never be clean for a reasonable salary. He could likely fill his modest apartment five times over before making a dent in his bank account, and that’s not even touching the various stashes of less traceable cash._

_Annoyingly, he has to find another store to get the damn television, and winds up wandering into a Best Buy. It’s another store he’s never set foot in before, but this one’s simpler seeing as he literally only needs one thing. He ends up getting some smart TV that boasts an excellent sound system and is fairly fucking sure he won’t touch it unless Rey wants to use it._

_His deliveries show up the next day, and he watches the whole space get filled, offering only the barest input on where things ought to go. Honestly, he couldn’t care less, so long as they steer clear of his bed, but the pair of morons who show up keep staring blankly at him with lamps or particle board in hand until he makes some kind of decision. When they’re done, Kylo tips them highly enough to ensure they write down the slightly incorrect address on their clipboard before sending them on their way. The television is delivered to his door, and he carts the thing in himself, setting it on the stand and letting the array of wires trail behind it unattached. He’ll get around to that._

_It’s the task of a few minutes to ‘clean’ the apartment, in that it mainly involves him finding a place for the laundry he hasn’t managed to take care of yet as well as relocating a small stash of firearms from under his mattress and pillow. The back of the closet seems like a good place for the former, while the weapons get a new home in the tallest cabinets, hidden behind his brand new cereal bowls. He can’t stop himself from leaving his favored Taurus OSS tucked between the mattress and box spring, but the rest are placed high enough Rey won’t even see them unless she’s climbing on something._

_With everything in place, it looks like the kind of apartment that might show up in photographs. Thanks to the Ikea employee’s babbling suggestions, he’s pretty sure everything matches, save for the table. It would have been easy to buy a new one, but living below his means is a habit that’s not entirely easy to shake off, so Kylo had rejected the idea of buying a new one when he had a perfectly functional table already._

_All that’s left at that point is sleeping arrangements. Kylo is under no delusion his apartment is large enough to fit a copy of his bed into it, especially with all the new additions, and he frankly doesn’t want to try. If he’s being honest, the hope is that Rey will simply share his bed. It’s large enough to fit him comfortably, and they’d have no trouble sharing, but he has the feeling she might object if he were to suggest it. After nearly a full day of deliberation, a good portion of which he spends horrified with himself about how much he’s thinking about a damn_ bed _, Kylo settles on a futon._

_It’s a somewhat pathetic thing, in comparison to his own bed at least. As far as futons go, it’s actually not half bad. He swaps it for the couch he’d originally purchased for the sake of space, a decent piece of furniture but it’s a joke to think his long limbs would ever fit comfortably laid out on it. There’s a method to his madness, however._

_He knows with all certainty he can’t ask Rey to share a bed with him. She’d refuse out of stubbornness if nothing else. There’s similarly no good outcome for him if he tries to force the issue. Either he’d wind up sleeping next to a cold imitation of the woman he_ wants _in his bed, or he’d be on the couch anyway, unable to let her take it out of some misplaced sense of chivalry. The futon is a means to an end._

_Rey is nothing if not soft-hearted, and his voluntarily giving up his own bed can only end one of two ways. Either she’ll offer to share out of sympathy (or, he thinks with a sick sense of optimism, due to the sheer temptation), and he’ll have gotten what he wanted. Or Rey will stand firm in her irritating habit of pretending she can stop them gravitating toward each other, in which case Kylo probably deserves the uncomfortable nights’ sleep he’ll get for trying to manipulate her. It doesn’t mean he won’t try anyway, but Kylo is good at accepting the shitty hands he often deals himself, and this would be no different._

_It certainly doesn’t keep him from hoping, and he spends his last night alone in his bed trying to enjoy it as best he can. His sleep is unfortunately interrupted by dreams, and rather than the kind he’s used to dealing with, it’s an altogether more troubling sort. He wakes slowly from them, disoriented and sluggish, and the absence of the warmth he expects to find beside him is disappointing beyond words._

***

“Mission is a go, see you Monday,” Rey types into the burner phone in the bathroom stall. SSA Dameron expects her back to go over some small details but she excused herself to give Ben every minute of preparation time she can give him. She has a bad feeling about this, about the whole thing and she doesn’t even try to deny it but what choice does she have? She has this one shot to save those children and maybe even take down the First Order in the process. She couldn’t walk away from that if she tried.

Agent Dameron had eventually agreed to her proposal but had been skeptical of her plan at best - especially since from his side of the table, Rey is going to be working, quote: “on a hunch and an inkling that her old childhood friend would buy her bullshit story”.

“He _will_ buy it,” she promises once she is back in his office and their detail-talk has trickled into a broader conversation, “he’ll want to help me. I was like a little sister to him.”

Her higher-up nods begrudgingly: “I can believe that, even if I think it’s reckless and I’d rather not risk it. But it’s a shot we have to take.”

“No one else is better equipped for it than me,” she says, “I swear I won’t let you down.”

“I have no doubt about that, Kenobi,” the SSA says, “but I’m worried about you. Undercover is no joke and Kylo Ren is dangerous.”

“Not to me,” Rey mutters. “He won’t hurt me, I know it.”

“You’re placing a lot of faith in nostalgia,” he says, brow furrowed. “I really hope this pans out. Especially since he is not the only one to worry about when it comes to the First Order. ”

“Sir,” she tries one last time to end this conversation on a hopeful note; “I know I can do this.”

He nods and she rises, taking it as her cue to go but as she opens the door, he calls her name and gives her pause.

“Yes, Sir?” she says, on the go.

“Your boy Finn?” He nods, indicating the office several floors down where Finn works, at a zero-clearance clerk job, by nodding at the ground, “talk to him first. And think about if you want to string him along through this. I don’t mean to get overly personal here, but I’ve found it’s better to cut the ties before starting on an operation like that. Just a bit of advice from someone who’s been around the block before.”  

Rey nods, thanks him and leaves and only breathes again when she is far into the hallway.

 _Finn_. She has completely forgotten about Finn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see some art by the lovely EllieCarina for this fic, it's over here on tumblr: http://jackpotgirl.tumblr.com/post/138878652910/inspired-by-the-new-moderncrimeau-thick-skin
> 
> The scene hasn't happened yet....but we'll get there ;)


	3. CHAPTER THREE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm before the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just short of 15K words, this one is a beast and goes to show what ViciousRhythm and I can do with a week and imaginations running rampant. 
> 
> So it will remain thus: chapters will take a while to come in but will be long and luscious to make up for it.  
> To everyone coming in new: Hello, we love you. To everyone coming back who has already subscribed: You are the world!
> 
> And now, enjoy :)
> 
> [SONG]: Tonight by Lykke Li (https://open.spotify.com/track/4qo5BUZx4IAdbmltMJAiKd)

**CHAPTER THREE: [Watch My Back So I Make Sure (You're Right Behind Me As Before)]**

 

Rey barely has any friends outside the agency and no family, no one to make a big to do about her disappearing. So when she leaves her apartment late on Monday, everything is taken care of. She has set up a dead drop for her and SSA Dameron to use, has frozen all her personal accounts and contracts and has for all intents and purposes, dropped off the grid, stopped to exist.

 

Rey feels herself disappear on the car ride over to Brooklyn, leave Agent Rey Kenobi behind and her life that she built, the one she is proud of. She has not slept much over the weekend, which helps with the look she is going for. The rest is done by the remnants of heavy eye-make up that has smeared over night.

 

She must’ve done a pretty decent job with it too, because she looks so downtrodden it took her five tries to hail a cab and the driver she has now still looks at her like she might yet not pay. She is wearing skinny jeans in a faded black and with holes on the knees. She deliberated if that maybe wasn’t too cliché - a poster bad girl - but then again, it was a cliché for a reason and her thrift-store sweater kind of evens the whole adolescent-rebel look out. Especially because it isn’t a Williamsburgian-look-at-me-I’m-a-gold-star-hipster sweater but actually and truly ugly and worn. It looks like it belonged to a homeless person and when she’d bought it, it had smelled like grandma.

 

Her whole look is pretty good, she thinks. As if beneath drug abuse-infused negligence, there was a girl who wanted to wear pretty things but who simply couldn’t afford them and also did not have the capacity to take the best care of herself. She has about sixteen basics she can combine either which way which helps with her directive of travelling light. All she takes with her to Ben’s place is a frayed military backpack with clothes, toiletries and a little photo album. And little does mean little, it holds maybe ten or so pictures of her past and it’s made even slimmer because she had to remove every single one that could have tied her to the FBI or law enforcement in any way. Rey, the fuckup, has nothing to do with executing the law - only breaking it to survive.

 

If the story about gaining Kylo Ren’s trust to infiltrate the First Order through him wasn’t a big fat lie, she would be using the time she has left now, stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, to go over her cover story. But as it is, she doesn’t need to worry about it. It leaves a lot of capacity to worry about everything else. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous and slightly scared of the operation itself. She’d never done undercover work before and she wasn’t the most gifted actress. Plus the First Order is terrifying in its recklessness and reach. Ben would maybe offer a bit of a buffer between her and its operatives but should she be made, they’d probably both wind up in the Hudson with bullets through their brains. Still this very moment, she is more concerned with and afraid of Ben himself. Or better, of herself around him.

 

She thinks back with no small amount of shame to their meeting at the Cantina Inn and how riled up she’d been during and especially after, about how he still held that much weight over her. And not just weight, power too, intrigue and temptation he was painfully aware of. She could fight against an evil section of the underworld of organized crime all day - but she would also have to fight her own stupid heart and body at the same time and there is a very real possibility she will lose that fight. She doesn’t trust herself around him alone for an _hour_ and in too short a time, she will share a place with him for many, many hours, days and _nights_ . She gulps, pressing her forehead against the car window and crossing her legs tightly to keep from squirming. She’d thought this through, thought it to its conclusion - which will likely be her destruction. But there’s no way around it. As cheesy and cooky as it sounds, she has to do it _for the children_.

 

Too fast for her liking, the cab is out of the worst of traffic and heads for the skivvy part of Brooklyn, near the docks. The apartments here look shabby but she knows they still cost a fortune and she makes the cab driver let her out a couple of blocks before Ben’s building. She pays him and tips well in cash and she makes note of his pleasant surprise. Then she leaves him behind, this bridge between her old and her new life.

 

She’s just Rey now. She’s no one. She lights a cigarette and smokes it hastily; this part of her life she’ll carry over and it seems so cynical that it’s her one bad habit. Or, if she was honest, one of the two she has. The second is how her heart beats out of her chest because she’ll see _him_ soon.

 

Ben’s place is in an old factory that doesn’t have too many other inhabitants by the looks of it. Rey guesses it’s managed and upheld by the First Order for the First Order and she has the uncomfortable sensation of being watched as she enters through the main door. She takes the huge, rattling elevator up to the highest floor which is the fourth and wonders if Ben can hear it, if it tells of her arrival. Surely, the flat boots she’s wearing make little to no announcing sound on the hallway she steps into, ruffling through her hair for maximum tangledness. But when she knocks on the door he has indicated in his last message to her, he opens up so quickly, she knows he’s been waiting.

 

***

 

_It’s been a task all day to restrain himself from sending Rey a text, give her a call, and tell her the whole thing’s off. His lack of sleep is feeding into the anxiety over how batshit this whole plan is. Kylo has power within the Order, of course, but the more he dwells on the actual plan and less on his own personal worries about housing her, the more he thinks they’re doomed to fail. He has his phone out, her number highlighted when he hears the knock on the door._

 

 _He barely has to take a step to open it, having been pacing the floor between the door and the living area, now divided by the presence of his new futon, what the_ hell _does he think he’s doing? His worries ratchet up all the higher at the sight of Rey standing on his doorstep, hair a mess of tangles, looking like she’d had to drag the sweater she’s wearing off a dead body and isn’t sorry. Despite all of it, her eyes still light up at the sight of him, going wide while her mouth twitches like it’s desperate to smile for him._

 

_There are a lot of shitty things Kylo Ren has done, but dragging her into this is likely the worst. He knows he can’t back out though. If for nothing else, than for the faith she must still have in him being able to make it right. That expression haunts him, like the sweetest of nightmares. She wore it openly when he’d first found her, that smile never trapped behind propriety, often pressed against his mouth in the few days she’d been truly his. He’d tear out his own innards to have that back and be able to keep it, but the remnants of her trust burn against the knowledge that he can’t have more._

 

_“Come in,” he says sharply, hand latching onto her arm so it’s less a request and more a useless order. They’d discussed this, how any neighbors ought to be able to see a volatile reunion if they happen to glance into the hall._

 

 _“Yeah, yeah,” Rey says, bratty as all hell, and shrugs off his hand to push past him into the apartment. She walks backward after the first step inside, arrogant grin and vacant eyes replacing the open expression of a moment ago. “Are you gonna_ come _in?”_

 

_Kylo almost rolls his eyes at the played up innuendo, but has to give her credit. Her part doesn’t require subtlety, and they’ve planned to transition her from wasted vagrant to protected protege over the next few days. He doesn’t quite slam the door behind him, but it’s a near thing._

 

_“Well,” she says when the door’s closed and her eyes go from glazed over to razor sharp and observant so quickly, he has to blink to adjust. “Good enough?”_

 

_“Perfect.” He deliberately doesn’t snap, trying to set aside his anxieties and focus on the issue at hand. They’ve got a lot of ground to cover, especially if he wants to be able to sleep at all past the worry. The better prepared she is, the less likely he’ll have to see her corpse._

 

_“Thanks.” Rey says it slowly, like she doesn’t trust the freely given praise, and as well she shouldn’t. That will be the first thing he’ll teach her - don’t trust anyone. She can trust him. But that’s as far as she’ll be able to go._

 

_“Any problems getting here?” he asks, moving further into the apartment and motioning her after him. “And should I be expecting any other involvement from your people?”_

 

_“No and no.” Rey drops her bag in the corner of what serves as a bedroom, and the slumped form of her possessions in his space seems right, more real than the imitations of a household that he’d bought. She almost sounds smug when she goes on. “And if your guys check my background they’ll find a sweet, little bouquet of delinquencies of the drug related crime variety, perfect with indecent behavior and corruption of minors.”_

 

 _“What minors would you have corrupted?” he asks her skeptically, with a raised eyebrow that is only half for show and he tries to figure out if she is that_ chipper _because she actually enjoys herself or because she is just as scared shitless as he is._

 

_“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She says lightly and sets out on a self-guided tour through his studio._

 

_It’s not a large apartment, so she can really take in most of it at a glance, but he watches her wander anyway._

 

_Moving away from his bed backed up against the farthest wall at a pace too swift to not be deliberate, she breezes by his dresser, runs her fingers over the back of the futon, folded up into a couch setting at the moment. He doesn’t have any movies or anything to go with his unplugged television, and he can see her spot the trailing wires, catches the unimpressed look she gives him for it. Two chairs at the table she winds around, and then she’s picking at his kitchen area, the only space he actually knew how to fill up._

 

_His go-to meals of rice or pasta and not much else are fine for him, but he’s stocked up a bit in anticipation so that his kitchen actually appears to be owned by a normal person. The fruit bowl on the counter is maybe a little overkill, but he’s a bit glad for it when Rey picks up an apple, tosses it between her hands, and takes a bite._

 

_“Nice place,” she says after swallowing. She still chews with her mouth half open, as if no one else could see her and he remembers how she always did this as a child, when she first came to the Yavins’ and he wondered if she might’ve been raised by wolves before._

 

_Kylo hums noncommittally, moving to lean against the table so they’re facing each other with the counter between them. It feels best to have that buffer, though it’s functionally meaningless. After all the stress he’d gone through making the place liveable, it’s an odd sort of comfort that she doesn’t make a big deal of it. It’s doubtful that he’s actually fooled her, and far more likely that she can see him watching her exploration like a hawk and downplayed it on purpose. They have more important things to discuss than his sad attempt at normalcy._

 

_“I’ve never had to teach someone the ins and outs of the operation,” he says, a little uncertain where to start. “It’s probably going to be confusing to follow, the organization system is...fluid.”_

_Rey settles in at the table with her eyes trained on him, somehow twisting her legs into a weird tangle of limbs that can’t possibly be comfortable and listens._

_“For starters, you’re coming in way above the usual crap that gets pulled in off the streets. I’m one of a few people who receive direct orders from Snoke himself, and as such, you’ll have some privileges others won’t,” he begins and sits down opposite of her and can’t help but notice how weird it is to have her there, have her occupy his space like that. “That doesn’t mean you should feel brave enough to do anything but defer to me and anyone else in the Order. Seniority is earned at a high price and both you and your, uh, character, should respect that.”_

 

_“We’ll she’s still a work in progress,” Rey says and he thinks she is trying hard for the veneer of good humor she glazes over her words. “I’m not...an actress. I just need to fit in. I would actually like your input on that. You know, anything to not have me leave this place in a body bag.”_

_“If you think that’s even a possibility, I want you_ gone _.” Kylo is not kidding and he doesn’t understand how she can. “Do you understand me? The minute you think your life is in immediate danger, you go. Whatever’s happening. I can take care of myself if it comes to that.”_

_He pauses, making sure to look pointedly at her, to make sure she understands fully what he means by that. That she shouldn’t play the hero if push comes to shove, that she lets him go before she can get hurt. She can’t die. She simply can’t._

 

_Kylo has a hard time focusing on the matter at hand again but somehow manages to reel it in enough to continue._

_“As far as your part goes, just remember, you’re nothing. You come in as no one except what you are to me.”_

_“But you’ll have to tell them we’re something. Like, I’ll keep living with you, right?” There is something wavering in her eyes, like she is actually afraid he could change his mind about that._

_“Of course,” he says like a shot, why the hell would she think he’d do anything other than keep her here. “The story is that I found you on the street. You’ve been pretty much on your own since we parted ways, and you have no better options but to trust that I’ll take care of you like I say I will. You need to have something the Order can use, so you’ll likely have to fake familiarity with at least a few drugs. Just try to think of it from the side of the dealer instead of a cop.”_

 

_He lets that sink in before he continues: “I used to oversee distribution in Chicago, so you’ll be working with me and a woman named Phasma.”_

_“I can do that. I just,” Rey nods and then ponders. “I’d rather not get involved in the street-walking side of it all.”_

_“No,” he thinks he might pulled something from how quickly he jumped into the negation of everything that could come even remotely close to putting Rey out on the streets like that. “That’s more Hux’s department and I don’t trust that man as far as I can throw him. He left the dealing to me once I was in. I think he always wanted bigger things than dealing with junkies.”_

 

 _“Well, I’m gonna have to get with Hux eventually,” she says like that’s something she can just say and not expect him to lose his mind a little. “If we want to put an end to these_ bigger things _he wants.”_

 _“You don’t need to do_ anything _with him,” Kylo barges upward, instantly animated and suddenly his hands are everywhere, underlining every last phrase. ”All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and your eyes open, Rey. You’re here as a witness and to gather evidence, not to sacrifice yourself for an in with the scum that runs the show. We’ll get what we need without you having to do more than look him in the eye.”_

 

_“I wasn’t talking about spreading my fucking legs for him, I’m not a hooker, Jesus,” she says and seems mildly surprised by his outburst and maybe even a little embarrassed because her cheeks pink softly in a way that makes it hard to look at her._

_“I fucking shouldn’t think so,” he is fuming and resists the urge to start pacing again only by a thread. “These people aren’t like me, Rey. They don’t give a damn if you’re breathing tomorrow, and they’ll take whatever they can get from you without a second thought. However careful you think you need to be, up it.”_

 

_“Well, so it would be logical to be yours then, like you said. Unquestionably,” she says, hard-faced. “I hear men don’t get ‘no’ unless another man pissed on the girl. Proverbially speaking.”_

_“Exactly,” he says, smoothing through his hair like it would give him back some hold of himself. “So these next couple of days are going to be devoted to making that believable. Like you said, you’re no actress, so this is practice. We won’t be going out much, maybe once or twice, but even here, you’re going to need to be comfortable in my space, clingy even. The more dependant you seem, the less threatening you are as a new face and the less likely anyone will try to bother you.”_

 

_Somewhere along his little speech, her face turned even further to stone if that’s at all possible and her distaste for him is palpable._

_“Trust me, I can do_ clingy _,” she says and the word sounds like she is spewing pure, seething hate from her lips, “I’ll just think back to a year ago...right after you left and I thought I would die. But you must be losing it if you think I’m going to play house with you.”_

 

_“I’m not asking you to.” Being cold and snappish is the only way he can think of handling this without giving up too much, sticking them in a quagmire they might not be able to drag themselves out of. Why is she so goddamn stubborn? She has to see that this doesn’t get them anywhere good. “But you can’t go pulling on strings from the past to get a rise out of me. It just makes us fight and that’s the opposite of what we need to present.”_

_“Okay,” she says sheepishly but it’s only surface-deep. She hates this, she clearly isn’t done getting all that anger at him out of her system. Outside, the last glimmer of day is fading and he switches on the lights, glad to have bought lampshades too. His apartment looks warmer now, more welcoming and he hopes it'll go at least a little way to put her at ease. She'll be so hard to handle if she stays as worked up as she is._

 

 _“Like I told you, I’m not...good at this, but I will_ try _to talk things out with you. We have most of a week,” he softens, really trying, because he wants this to work, as messy as it might be. Pulling out his own feelings isn’t something he’s ready for, but he owes her at least enough to let her exorcise some of her demons from the past.  “Let’s say you listen to me and learn what you need to know and I’ll listen to you so you can say what you need to say. But not in front of anyone else. There’s too much at risk for you to get your anger out that way.”_

 

 _He doesn’t know exactly what he said to prompt her reaction by the time she has snapped out of her seat and crossed over to his side of the table. And he doesn’t know_ anything _anymore when she steps close to tower above him, looking at him like he is possibly starlight and his mind goes blank like a magic slate. He can’t even begin to puzzle out_ what the fuck _she is doing, because then she is arching down, pushes the hair he’s been constantly fiddling with off his forehead and kisses him, soft like torture and lingering as if she had all the time in the world. By the time he is lucid enough to kiss her back, she is already breaking away._

 

 _“I can do this. Out there,” she says but he can barely hear her over the blood rushing past his ears, every coherent thought drowned out by his heartbeat. He thinks vaguely that this must be how she kisses when_ she _tries to make a point._

_“In here, I’ll take that deal,” she continues and then returns to her seat with nothing to show for what she’s done but her flushed skin._

 

_Kylo’s more than a little starstruck and he stares at her like the idiot he obviously is. He didn’t actually think she could touch him like that anymore, with open affection instead of the lust he thought was the only version of her he had access to at this point. His hands clench into fists before he shoves him into his pockets to keep from reaching for her. He has no idea what that was but he wants more and he knows he won’t get it. Not with any kind of sincerity. Just a play act._

_“Alright,” he strains to achieve somewhat of a normal sounding voice but he thinks it might come out like a pathetic groan. “Do you want to keep going with my side of things or do you need to hash anything out now?”_

_“We go one at a time,” she elects and really, she could ask anything of him right now. “You first.”_

 

_“Okay,” he nods and has to think for a second where to restart now that he’s been so utterly sidetracked. “Aside from the logistics, your first rule is don’t trust anyone but me. Phasma, the woman I work with most often, is one of the more decent people, so if you have to be away from me for a time, she’s your best bet. But no one is going to stick their neck out for you, no matter how they present themselves.”_

_“Understood,” Rey nods and then shifts in her chair, likely bracing herself, thinking what she wants to say to him. He would rather not find out. “Before you, I’d never really...let anyone in. I never saw things go further than the bedroom. And then we happened and you were..home. Not in the old way, but a new one, a possibility for a_ real _one. That’s why it hurt so bad when you left. Because I just lost it all over again.”_

 

_Kylo feels the impact of her words like a fist to the throat and tries hard not to look like a sad piece of shit. He fails, he can feel that on his face as it twists into a grimace._

_“If I’d had anything to give you besides...this, I would’ve stayed. You have to know that. I was trying to hurt you_ less _, I’m just. Selfish.” He looks at his hands folded before him. “If I’d been smart, I wouldn’t have let it get that far in the first place.”_

_“Okay. I’ll...have something to say to that,” Rey says, voice low and measured. “But hit me with some more facts first.”_

 

_“Snoke is near-infallible as far as the Order is concerned,” Kylo presses on determinedly because god knows how long he can hold on to his wits while all of this is happening. “He’s been running the show longer than I know and his generals - the people directly under him - follow him without question. He’s been in this game too long to slip up, so our focus is on getting evidence from his underlings, not him. We’re not even going to try it.”_

_“Snoke is off limits for now. Got it,” she nods._

_“He’s not just off limits for now,” he hurries before she can get any ideas. “He’s barely even a man anymore. If we’re gunning for taking down the whole First Order, it’ll have to be in pieces under him. He’s not going to be caught out, we’ll have to dismantle the support system.”_

 

_Kylo has something like blind faith in Snoke’s ability to lead. Snoke was the person who elevated him from running drugs to carrying out hits, the first person to see some capacity for greatness in him and basically gave him the life he has now. Kylo knows he’s intrinsically a very, very bad man, but can’t quite shake that loyalty - and also the fact that he thinks about taking down the whole Order seems wrong to him in a twisted way. He says they could but doesn’t quite believe it. He might operate under the assumption they’ll be able to stop the current endeavor into child trafficking, has to if he’s willing to stake both their lives on it, but is really only laying out the grand scheme because he thinks that’s what Rey wants to hear._

_“Good,” she says, taking his word for it and takes a beat. “My turn; I knew you were down back then. I didn’t know why or how badly, but I knew you weren’t right.”_

 

_She studies his face while she speaks and it seems to take a little more of her to go on._

_“I wanted to_ make _it right, though,” she says, not quite meeting his eyes. “I thought I’d let you down, you know. That you came to me looking to get fixed and then I couldn’t do it. And two weeks later I saw your face in a Most-Wanted-fucking-Powerpoint and everything fell apart. And I still blamed myself. I just went farther back. Because I never made an effort to find you either. All through school. I was just angry with your for leaving me and every time I...thought about googling you or getting in touch with people, I didn’t. I still think that, maybe if I’d been there, I could have…”_

_“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t do that to yourself.”_

 

_He can’t really bring himself to fully address all the things about that little speech that hurt, but he can’t let her take onto her shoulders what he made of himself. There is no one but him to blame for that, and it’s not fair to let her try to take it on. She nods, for now, and signals he can go on with some facts. But knowing that she feels this way is sure to burn and eat away at him, probably for as long as what is left of his miserable life._

_“Right,” he says and tries to think of what else she needs to understand about what it is he does. “I will likely have to kill someone while we’re working together on this, and I need you to accept that right now.”_

_“Yes. I had to kill before. Comes with the job. I get it,” she says and he finds solace in the fact that she’s sincere. “Okay. This is...the last thing I think I need to say for now.” She pauses but not for effect. The way she looks at him to gauge if he’s ready makes his stomach flip with the ugly cousin of anticipation._

_“I’d have thought there was more, but…” he says, dreading the ‘one more thing’ all the same. “Go on.”_

 

_“There’ll be more,” she half-smiles and only now her voice catches, only now, after everything she already said to him. And he can see it ripple through her, the things she spares him now as she continues. “I guess what it all boils down to is -” No. There’s a red hot panic button in the center of his being and she is pushing it as her eyes start to water and she tries to control herself, to will herself from starting to cry and fails and - oh my god - he can’t deal with this._

 

 _“I just, wanted,” she grits out like the words are fighting her, “_ needed _to know if you were_ sorry _at all.” And then the first fully formed tear runs down her cheek._

_The sight of her in tears is completely terrifying, for a multitude of reasons. For one, he’s never been able to handle women crying, and then he also never wanted to see her like that, and it’s only in this moment that he actually realizes he’s never apologized outright._

 

_He can’t help it, he has to go to her at that. He couldn’t stop from cupping her face in his hands, thumbs brushing away her tears if he tried, and he looks her in the eye to say it._

_“I am sorry, Rey. For all the pain I’ve caused you. I never meant to- I’m sorry,” he sputters, heart firmly in his mouth. “I don’t know how to say it better or make you believe it, but I am.”_

 

_Rey nods and tries to say something but she can’t get anything past the sobs that keep breaking their way out into the open like knives to his bare chest._

_Kylo somewhat panics and wraps her in his arms, pulling her up to stand pressed against his frame because he doesn’t know what else to do._

_“Please stop. I can’t… Please. I’m sorry.” To his deepest shame, he’s trembling, clumsily smoothing out that god-awful sweater she is wearing. His brain is shutting down on him, leaving just that one trail of thought: Oh dear god, he_ ruins _everything he touches, he can’t even apologize right, what is wrong with him? Why is she even here? He’s going to fuck this up too. This one good thing he ever had and she is coming apart in his arms in entirely the wrong way._

 

_Rey pulls herself together, and then pulls away entirely, plucking his arms from her body and staggers away from him, rising on shaky feet and he is left to hover in his hunched over shape, grasping at the table top for support._

_“I’m sorry about that,” she says indicating her snot on his shirt and means her outburst. When she goes on, she is rambling, “I...I never really dealt with this, I guess. I’m just gonna...I need...a cigarette and I’ll be fine. Do you have a balcony or like a fire escape?”_

 

_Kylo tries to reshuffle back into someone who isn’t used to holding her and tries to forget immediately how she felt and how her hair smelled beneath his nose._

_“Not attached, but there’s a balcony through the hall, to the left,” he says, in what must be a sad attempt at a casual tone. “You really should try to kick that habit though. It’s in character, but really.”_

_“Methadon,” she shrugs like she is saying ‘If I can’t have you, then I’ll have this’ which can not be what she is saying if he wants to keep his self-control, let alone his sanity, and she leaves him there._

 

_He watches her go and has to wonder if the sting he feels seeing her do it is even a fraction of what she felt when he walked away from her. He at least knows she’s planning on coming back, but was there much difference between his faith in her return from a smoke break and her childish faith in his younger self coming back for her? Her belief in him when they were so much more to each other?_

 

_The memory of her eyes filling is enough to bring the breath short in his chest, so he moves to alleviate it, to distract himself. There’s not much in his apartment to do without her here, and even less that he’s familiar with now that the landscape is so changed. He picks up the task of finding something to eat with only half-assed enthusiasm. There’s a small colony of takeout menus in one of the kitchen drawers, but it takes him a moment to hunt them down. It’s not much of a distraction, and his mind keeps spinning while he’s rummaging about._

 

_Kylo has so rarely apologized for anything in his life, the words had felt all but alien coming from him, but there had been a release in it. He knows it’s nowhere near enough to make up for what he’s done to her, the shit he’s still dragging her through, but it’s maybe a start. As far as first steps go, it’s belated and small, but it’s something._

 

 _When Rey is back, she seems more composed but they can’t talk anymore. He shows her how to work around the kinks in the plumbing and directs her to the bed. He takes forever to fall asleep and when he does, it’s to the sound of her funny little snores. The first time it happens, he almost weeps because_ fuck everything _that’s good and true in this world, he has missed listening to her sleep so much, it nearly breaks him._

 

***

 

When the clock above the door blinks 9:15 AM, Rey is tired of watching the orange digits waste away her time and sits up. She is programmed to rise no later than seven on any given morning and she couldn’t go back to sleep if she tried. So she sits up and yawns heartily, glancing over to the futon to see if Ben is secretly awake already. Going from the giant pile of black sheet splayed across the single bed that is decidedly too tiny for him, she can tell he is not. His even breathing fills the silence and she tries to remember if either of them has snored during the night. She has no idea.

 

It had been weird going to bed the night before, Ben readily retiring to the futon without even the hint of a different possibility and then falling asleep to him being clearly still wide awake. She could all but hear his mind work on something he wouldn’t share but she could swear she heard him wince once or twice. And until she went under from sheer exhaustion, their whole conversation had played back and forth and to and fro in her head like a merry-go-round, always coming around to the end of it. _He was sorry_. She’d known it but now he’d said it and there was closure in that. Something to build this new thing on. He’d be her lifeline going forward and she needed to forgive him for that to work. Now she could.

 

For a while she just sits there, feeling awkward and foreign, both with this new sensation of forgiveness and her new surroundings. At home she would have a bowl of cereal now and get ready for work - alas this isn’t her home and work isn’t work anymore and she doesn’t even know where he keeps his bowls, let alone if he has any. All his furniture looks so pristine and unused, she could half believe he’d bought it all just for her. But that seems so ridiculous, she casts the notion aside. Eventually, after finding that she can’t wake him up just by thinking at him but also being decidedly against actually rousing him physically, she climbs out of the bed to heed nature’s call.

 

When she is done, she takes a quick shower and cleans up her face from the residual make-up. If she’ll be holed up here with him for another three days, she’ll do it looking like herself. Her reflection greets her with a familiarity that almost hurts and she leaves her hair in a towel turban to dry. This helps because now she could be anyone, just stepping out of the shower. Not Rey Kenobi, not Fuckup-Rey, just...some variant from the middle or the outskirts. It seems fitting for this limbo they’re in.

 

Ben is still dead to the world when she emerges and she notes that however weighty her steps are, he will not be stirred. She sits idly at the counter deliberating if she should give his fancy coffee maker a spin but decides against it, for now. After minutes of this, she grows restless and wanders again, crossing the loft once, twice before curiosity gets the better of her. Everything here is so fashionable and positively dead and she thinks there is more life in the IKEA displays, because they have books and fake kids drawings stapled everywhere. Ben has nothing but some fruit in a bowl. He doesn’t even have a single plant, not even one made of plastic. Suddenly, her investigative wiring sets it, her scavenger's senses alert, and she tries to get into his mind, tries to puzzle out where he would keep personal items, something real and tangible that belongs to him, anything to prove a human lives here instead of a shell.

 

First, she tries the toilet tank cover because that’s the go to drug-stash hiding place if you’re lazy, but of course there is nothing except a small revolver in a zip-lock bag that makes her chuckle at best. Nope, he won’t hide anything in the bathroom. Maybe it isn’t some elaborate place at all - maybe it’s where she hid her shame, the little silver burner phone he left her with. Alas, his drawer holds only clothes, mostly black ones and so she is about ready to give up and play with her toes for a while when she feels a little ridge under her fingertips, rummaging underneath his socks in the bottom drawer; a false bottom. That sounds like Ben. A perfectly smooth cover with just the tiniest crack hinting at the secrets beneath. She wiggles it loose and fishes out a little tin box, about the size of her palm. She would have expected more and keeps on digging. A pang of sadness mixes in with her curiosity when she comes up empty and she realizes that apparently all of his memorabilia and everything personal he wants to hang onto fits into this tiny little box.

 

Her fingertips ghost along the clasp of it and she berates herself for breaching his privacy like that, but then she remembers how he’d breached hers and then left her high and dry and she can crank it open with a little more ease. He looked inside everything she had, took it all and then never bothered to put it back, so she could as well risk a peak into what he held so dear.

 

It’s not much. A little piece of fuzzy, brown faux fur that looks like it’s been ripped off of a teddy bear ages ago, an amber necklace that seems to have survived from the age of Aquarius, two letters and one photo that is folded at the bottom. She takes out the first letter and stops again before opening it. She really should stop now. This isn’t right.

 

But Rey is weak and an asshole, plus her curiosity will definitely kill her if she doesn’t follow through now and unlike the proverbial cat, she only has this one life. She carefully unfolds it and lets her eyes trail across neat, small handwriting. It’s not a long letter but it rams her like a wrecking ball square in the chest all the same.

 

_My dearest, dearest boy,_

 

_I hope you have the best eleventh birthday. I am very sorry I can’t be there for you as I will be traveling for work for the next couple of months. Please, please, Ben, try and be a good boy and don’t run away again. If you are good, I might be able to have them let you come back at least over the summer. I am fighting to get you back but I can’t do it alone._

 

_I’ve spoken to your father and he tells me to send you his love. He misses you too._

_Just be good, Ben, promise me. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you._

 

_I love you so much,_

_Momma_

 

Rey folds the letter back into shape so quickly as if it was burning up in her hand and she feels the flames charr her soul. She has to stifle a growling sob and chokes on her breath again, swallowing down tears. Rey had known his story, had heard it as a child, but what does a child know anyway? Even an orphan like her. She hadn’t been able to grasp what it meant back then to _have_ parents who loved you but still couldn’t hold on to you. Parents that wrote letters to eleven-year-olds like that and then eventually just forgot about him.

 

She goes for the other letter, hoping to find something uplifting but instead stumbling upon a memory that is hers as well as his. It’s scribbled in a horrible, clumsy kid’s hand, riddled with an alarming amount of mistakes for an eight-year-old and it’s endearing as well as heartbreaking to see her own writing like that, distorted and unpolished in its childishness. Beneath the text, there is a crude drawing of a very big boy with very black hair and very big ears and a little girl holding his hand. They have single little lines for noses and smiles that reach from one side of the face to the other. But there is a little, blue tear on the girl’s cheek Rey wishes she’d missed.

 

_Dear Benny,_

 

_I am very sad that yoo have to leev. I will mis yoo very much._

_Come bakk soon an dont forget me, please._

 

_Your Rey_

 

 _His Rey_ . She wants to scream at the mistake that seems like a fucking prophecy in retrospect and she hates him for a second because he kept this stupid note she gave him when he left but never actually came back while she still _needed_ him so badly. She puts the note back even quicker than the one before and almost doesn’t go on to look at the picture.

 

Because it’s _them_ , of course it’s them. It’s one of the few that were taken at the Yavins’, from one of the better days when they took them to the public pool. Rey must’ve been around six or seven, riding piggyback on Ben who looks even more out of proportion than today - but in a wonderful way. He smiles so widely it physically hurts to look. It startles her, how crushing her heart can still beat, as if it was tons heavy and it booms through her like a double bass. She loves him. More than she’ll ever be able to fathom and she realises she must’ve loved him even then. A different kind of love but it had been a part of her for about as long as she can remember.

 

She swallows hard and puts the box back together again, meticulously, so it looks like she never even saw it. Putting it back to its hiding place, she half wishes she hadn’t. If this box was hers, she’d put it under a false bottom too, just to hide it from herself.

 

Now she really needs a coffee, before she can do something truly stupid like cry her eyes out in front of Ben’s sock drawer.

 

***

 

_For a moment, Kylo has no idea why he’s awake. He still tired, hasn’t reached that headspace where being horizontal is more boring than restful, but then his brain kicks in just enough to register the smell that woke him. Coffee. He doesn’t remember setting the coffee maker last night._

 

_Sitting up is an arduous task, accompanied by at least a couple grunts and groans in protest. Once he’s sat up, Kylo can see Rey standing at his kitchen counter, and that wakes him up more effectively than the scent of god-given caffeine. Once the penny drops and he realizes she’s making coffee with his machine, his eyes go wide and he scrambles upright and off the futon._

 

_“What are you doing?” he demands, advancing on his coffeemaker in something that might be called a charge._

 

 _“Making coffee?” Rey says, and it sounds like a question, probably because he’s staring at her like an insane person, wondering why the fuck she’s touching his coffeemaker. It’s the only machine he knows how to operate flawlessly. They’ve_ bonded _, alright? She can’t just go around messing with his coffee. If she’s screwed up the settings, he’s going to have a very undignified response. Also he might never get them_ exactly _right ever again._

 

_“Making coffee,” he scoffs mockingly. There’s a cup in her hands as well as one on the countertop, but he refuses to be pleased that she thought to make a cup for him. “Who gave you permission to do that?”_

 

 _“It’s a_ coffee machine _, Ben,” she says disbelievingly. “Not the big red nuclear war button.”_

 

_He grumbles and takes a sip, expecting to be underwhelmed at best. Rey doesn’t seem like the type to fully respect the connection a man has with espresso, especially not a man facing regular sleep deprivation. To his utter surprise, it’s actually good. Good enough that he doesn’t hate it even without sugar and creamer, which is rare._

 

_“This is good,” he says blankly, maybe even a little accusing. Rey laughs while he glares at the machine in betrayal._

 

_“I think I know how to operate a coffee maker,” she tells him. There’s something soft lurking in the shadows of her expression. Kylo would almost call it pity if it weren’t for the good humor coloring her face. He knows he’s a bit of a train wreck first waking up, but that’s uncalled for._

 

_“It’s a very sensitive machine,” he says a bit defensively._

_“I am good with machines,” she shrugs, steadfast_.

 

_In the quiet moment after her comment, Kylo struggles to actually wake up, the taste alone helping. Rey’s not just a little softer, she’s fitting, somehow. He’s not sure what happened between their somewhat weighted retreat into sleep and now, but there’s a subtle change to her and it’s simply nice to see. It’s dangerous as well, too tempting to slip into the strangely domestic bubble they could create together. They ought to be comfortable, yes, but Kylo is determined not to lose his head entirely and fall into the gravity of what her affectionate expression does to him._

 

_“Well,” he mutters, eyes on his annoyingly good coffee. “You’re just lucky you didn’t blow it up or something. I’ve been told I’m a killer without a decent cup of coffee in the morning.”_

_“You look like your pillow,” she deadpans, with a glint in her eye, “or like a slightly murderous_ kitten _at best.”_

 

_He frowns at that, mumbles a quiet ‘fuck off’ into his coffee, and wanders over to fix it up. Good or not, if he has the time to add his usual dose of sugar, he’s taking it. He stubbornly ignores the oddly pleasant pressure in his chest at the sound of her laughing at him._

 

_Slowly, they settle into a rhythm, going back and forth between him trying to unravel as much of the First Order as he can for her and her making lists and notes to keep up. It’s a bit tedious but she is a fast learner and every time she gets something right, he feels a little better about the whole thing. They steer relatively clear of the touchy subjects because beneath all the newfound civility, they are both still rattled from their first night’s talk out. He knows there are still things simmering behind her eyes and she will get to them - but for now he’s just happy he can give her what he can give to prepare her for her mission._

 

***

 

Eventually, the last day of their First Order boot camp rolls around - and despite what Ben had promised, they haven’t left the studio at all, save for a grocery run and him joining her on the balcony to watch her smoke disdainfully. They could’ve taken another day, because no one is really expecting her, but she is antsy and time isn’t exactly abundant with the operation at the docks growing more functional by the day.

And so, after dinner, Ben had called Hux to tell him he’d come by to introduce someone new he wants to bring in the next day and no, he won’t get into it now, and he’ll have to wait, damnit, because _Kylo_ ’s got shit to do.

 

Rey wants this mission to go on. She also doesn’t have a choice. But still, until now, she has been stuck in this weird bubble with him, more playing “undercover cop” than actually being _under cover_ and she doesn’t know if she is really ready at all. She is jumpy and nervous and has been ever since he’s made the call. The only thing that half calmed her down was hooking up his TV - under his unbelieving gaze.

“I told you, I’m good with machines,” she’d said over her shoulder and joined him on the futon in its couch-y form.

 

This is how they came to sit side by side flipping through the absolute trash that is night-time TV and she ponders how he managed to get her onto his fucked up bio-rhythm so quickly. She should be fast asleep now but thinking of sleep is positively ridiculous faced with what awaits her the next day.

“Okay, fuck this,” she says eventually, huffing out a breath and half jumping to her feet. “I need a drink. Do you drink? Do you have liquor here?”

 

“Probably,” he says, glancing behind the couch. “That was never my poison, but I’ve likely got something hanging around.”

“Beer should be fine too. Or tequila. Ideally both. Beer to warm up, tequila to get smashed,” she explains needlessly like she’s a frat boy and watches Ben rummage through his cupboards until he finds what he is looking for.

 

“You’re in luck,“ he drags out a somewhat aged case of some possibly awful, hipster-looking beer. “Tequila might be a bit more of a hunt, but I know there’s half a bottle of vodka in the freezer somewhere.”

“I’ll take everything. You might have to hold my hair by the end of the night.” He looks at her like she’s suddenly a different person. “Oh, I wish I was kidding.”

“So you turned into a party girl,”  he says in an interesting blend of sarcastic and speculative.

 

“I turned into an _FBI agent_. Full of heavy drinkers that place, let me tell you,” she quips good naturedly.

“Good to know hangovers might be a weakness around your neck of the woods,” he says, returning with beer, vodka, probably the worst tequila known to man judging by how apologetically he sets it down on the table in front of her, and two glasses. “Your wish is my command, but I’m not holding your hair. You’re drowning in my toilet alone if you get too hammered.”

Rey actually pouts and for a second she feels like they’re _them_ again, and not only their x-rated version but the old them, the one that was _home_. “Just hand me the alcohol. You can cut me off when I start to yell about traffic cops.”

“Sounds entertaining.” He raises his eyebrows and opens a beer for her. “Bad blood between the cops and the feds?”

 

“No, that one’s personal,” she cheers to him, holding the pose until he has opened his own bottle. “Is this okay for you? I can get drunk on my own if you’d rather...stay sober.”

She wonders how alcohol might factor in his sobriety or not and she doesn’t want to be the reason he feels tempted to use again.

“I doubt I’ll get well and truly drunk,” he shrugs and she thinks he might be trying consciously to put her at ease. “Alcohol was never all that big a deal. Sort of skipped to the big leagues, so it wasn’t a problem in and of itself. And there’s a bit of social drinking in my line of work, too, so I’m fine.”

“Okay. Well then I guess, cheers.”

 

He clinks his bottle against hers and it’s nice, doing something so mundane and normal together and they drink two, three beers watching more trash TV until Rey gets bored because she is Rey and deep down she is still a kid who needs to be entertained. “Let’s play a game.”

“What like a drinking game?” he asks her with a sort of bemused expression.

“Yup,” she nods.

“Are we sixteen years old?” He snorts and takes another sip and while she already feels a little heavy-legged, he seems like he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol yet.

“Nope,” she smiles.

“Follow-up question,” Ben turns to face her after he thumbed the volume of the TV down. “Does it involve spin the bottle or using a closet to clumsily get to second base?”

Rey deliberates what game to play with him; “I don’t think so.”

 

“Then that sounds like no fun at all,” he scrunches his face, obviously sarcastically and leans forward, further into her space like maybe they’re new people and they can start all over again.

“It’s in the spirit of our _mission_ ,” she tells him. “It’s to get to know each other better.”

“Fine, fine,” he relents. “What are we playing?”

“It’s called Liar, Liar Pants On Fire,” she says, deciding this will be fun. “You have to guess which two of the three things I tell you about myself are a lie. And if you get it wrong you drink. If you get it right, I do.”

“Yeah, okay,” he says, weighing her enthusiasm like maybe he could catch it like a disease. “You go first?”

 

Rey thinks for a while, sips from her beer and then goes on to fill the two shot glasses with vodka.

“Okay, let’s see...For a while when I was in high school, I competed in pageants. I am a pretty terrific painter. And… I enjoy longs walks on the beach.”

“Please tell me the pageants thing is a lie,” he says, wide-eyed. “If it isn’t, I’m drinking anyway to forget.”

 

“I’m a fucking crappy painter that’s for sure,” she laughs. “But I also can’t get bothered to walk along the beach for longer than absolutely necessary. I _hate_ sand.”

“Goddamn.” He takes his shot with no hesitation. “Let the drinking to forget begin. You really did the whole dress up and smile and do the bikini walk thing?”

“All of it, the whole shebang,” she affirms, “I was pretty good at it too, wishing for generational inclusion and all that stuff while everyone else was going on and on about world peace. I made good money. Until my foster mother got wind of it and forbid me. They’d get less if I made my own, you know how it is.”

 

It’s nice, that they can have an exchange like this. So often, Rey feels like Ben can see right through her, but with this easy, playful bit of subterfuge, it’s a chance to relearn each other, or to pretend they’re maybe different people for a while. There’s so much she doesn’t know about him, and that he can’t know about her. Maybe if they have the chance to be these two people some more, this whole mission won’t be a complete disaster.  

 

Kylo grumbles his agreement. “Alright, my turn. I got my first tattoo when I was nineteen, I got my pilot’s license when I was twenty three, and I perfected my recipe for chocolate chip cookies when I was twenty eight.”

“Hm, I know for a fact that you don’t have any tattoos, at least none that I ever saw...and I saw pretty much everything,” she says and tries to push away the memories of him, completely naked and bent above her, because it makes the insides of her thighs tingle. “So it’s a toss up. I want to say chocolate chip cookies but you don’t even have a proper oven so...I’ll go with the pilot’s license.”

 

“Good guess, detective, but I had the tattoo removed,” he smirks. “Best not to have any extra distinguishing marks in my line of work. And I can't do more than basic baking.”

“What was it? The tattoo.” She sits up eagerly and watches him hesitate. “I’ll do two shots if you tell me.”

Ben fiddles with his beer for a second but then glances up at her, looking so positively dazzling it is either the alcohol booming in her veins or him being very purposeful.

“Fair deal.”

 

“Oh, you want me to deliver first?” she huffs when he doesn’t give her anymore. “Fine, one now, one after I hear it.”

Ben salutes her with his beer and waits like a smug ass. She downs it and nearly throws up in her mouth but tries to stifle it with willpower and beer.

“Pretty terrible, right?” he says. “It was one of those awful barbed wire things, around my arm. Thank god it was impulse bought and badly done, so the removal wasn’t too pricey.”

“That sounds awful!” Rey laughs a bellowing, bone-cracking laugh as she tries to imagine him with it. “I’d have thought you’d gotten some heart with an ex’s name on it.”

 

To be perfectly honest, she would be terribly disappointed if he’d ever loved someone so much, as in more than her, that he would’ve gotten her name inked on his skin.

Ben waits until she’s going for her second shot to say it, because he’s a bastard.

 

“What was I going to get, your name?” he laughs and his light-hearted smile is enough to double the effects of the booze. “I was nineteen, you were the only person I’d ever given a shit about.”

Rey nearly chokes on her shot and it burns down the wrong part of her throat.

“That would’ve been a little disturbing. Plus you did have girlfriends...like positively _plural_. I remember them, they’d ruffle my hair and say you were cute for putting up with me,” she says, still somewhat annoyed at even the memory.

 

“Let me rephrase. The only person I’d given a shit about for more than however long it took to get what I wanted.”

Rey is slightly put off but determined to like him right now because the shots are making her body feel buzzing and warm, and this is nice, she wants to keep going.

“Fine, whatever, you’re _horrible_. My turn.”

Ben gives her the most blazing, shit-eating grin she has ever seen when she calls him horrible and stretches over the seat, his arm landing just around her shoulder. Not quite touching, but so close.

 

“I never said I was nice, just charming,” and if he wasn’t flirting heavily before, he sure as hell is now, wickedness flowing along his heated gaze as he tilts his head down so he can give her a smoldering look beneath a furrowed brow. She can’t breathe for a second.

“So,” she says, trying to compose herself because damn him and how he manages to catapult her from relative sanity into what she is now, a blubbering, riled up mess. She means to make him pay, just a little.

“When I was at Quantico three things happened. One, I had a very steamy relationship with a girl named Jess. Two, I was top at my shooting class. Three, everyone thought I had an affair with my law and ethics professor, which wasn’t true but literally no one cared to fact check.”

 

“My imagination wants to hope the steamy relationship is true,” he says and he gives her the briefest of once-overs and it burns wherever his gaze touches on, “but I’m gonna have to go with shooting class.”

Rey shakes her head, pleased with herself. “I made out with Jess once, at a party and it was pretty nice but didn’t go anywhere. I was decent at shooting but I was top of the class at hand to hand. People were absolutely convinced that I was sleeping with my professor, because he kind of took me under his wing. He was a bit of a mentor and it was nice, you know, felt a bit like having a father. But there was nothing remotely sexual about it. Makes me gag just to think about it.”

With a little smile playing on his lips, he takes his shot without fanfare, grimacing when he sets it down and his voice has dipped several octaves when he speaks.

“You’ll have to show me that hand to hand sometime.”

 

“Okay,” she says, imagining them on a matt somewhere, doing anything but actually practicing hand-to-hand moves. “Now you. Make it good.”

Ben takes a moment to think and something shifts in his expression, when he eventually speaks, there’s a pause between each sentence, like it’s a little difficult to get them out.

 

“I like when you call me Ben,” he says and the sheer purr of his voice would be enough to set her on fire.

 

He has changed the rules, just like that, changed the entire game and suddenly, she’s helpless. The way he looks at her makes her stomach flip and a shiver crushes straight down into her core and she wants him so badly, she has to dig her fingernails into her palm sharply enough to draw blood.

 

“I sleep better on that futon than my own bed with you here.” He is distinctly not meeting her eye anymore, and now she knows he is cheating because that must be just as true as what he’s said before.

 

“I don’t want to leave this apartment. Ever,” he says with grim finality, and doesn’t wait more than a breath for her response before downing the rest of his beer and just like that, she dies.

“I, uh..,” she says in befuddlement, unable to compute or even string a coherent sentence together.

“You don’t have to guess,” he interrupts her, then stands to walk into the kitchen. “I guess that was cheating, but you said make it good.”

 _I didn’t say make it impossible to breathe or think straight_ , she thinks but all that comes out when she opens her mouth is: “I...I’m…” What is she doing, she isn’t _working_. “Cheating wasn’t…” Nope, she can’t even try anymore. Rey Kenobi is temporarily out of order and blindly takes another shot as if that would help at all.

 

“Maybe we should play something else, I don’t think I’m much good at this game,” Ben says low and raspy as he’s busy doing pretty much nothing in the kitchen, just getting some distance she takes it. He still gets himself a glass of water as an excuse before coming back to the couch, his presence suddenly a lot _louder_ than before.

“I, um, okay, wait,” she is officially an idiot but at least she has found something real to say. “You know the first night here, when I said all these things.”

“What about it?” he asks her and looks suddenly pained. She thinks this is not the game he had in mind at all.

 

“I wanted to...thank you,” she says, hoping he’ll see what her intentions are behind bringing it up again. “I know you don’t like talking about that stuff. But it really helped me. Put some things to bed. And I...I wanted to, you know, give you the chance to maybe ask me something in return. If you want to. It doesn’t have to be right now either. Just...I am _here_ , you know. And I’m pretty decent at talking. About anything.”

 

She says it because she means it and because, god, she knows how alone he is and she thinks of the little, tiny box of personal things he holds on to and apart from that there is nothing and no one in his life he could find some solace in. And the box itself is pretty fucking depressing anyway.

 

“If we’re not trying to lie anymore,” he starts heavily after a while and she sits straighter to take it, trying to focus on him past the rumble of booze in her blood. “Why did you kiss me, that day? Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why?”

 

“Do you want the truth or what I’m gonna tell myself once I’m sober?” she asks, knowing it’s a mistake, knowing what he’ll choose but she is god-awfully drunk and she wants to see his face when she says it.

“Both,” he says and there is a strange hunger in his eyes. “We can pretend you only said the one if you like tomorrow.”

 

“Officially,” she says and takes a deep, resonating breath before she can go on, “I felt challenged. Because you were being an ass about me losing my temper. I wanted to prove to you that I can do this for show and that it would look real, that it would feel real.”

She waits for his features to click with understanding, to see if he gets it.

“Good story, I’d buy it,” he nods and leans forward in a way that must be unconscious and his gaze drops to her lips. “Now what’s the real reason.”

 

Rey tries to find the answer herself. She hadn’t truly been all too aware of her motives, so she shrugs and maybe there are some tears back in her eyes when she says the one thing that looms above everything else she feels and felt, then and now; “I miss you.”

 

The silence following her admission is immediate and heavy, Ben’s expression not so much smoothing as sinking.

 

“We either need to be sober or much more drunk. And since we have all this ridiculously bad alcohol, I’d suggest we use it,” he says and sounds suddenly broken and exhausted but she hardly sees him through the mist of stubborn tears that won’t quite fall.

So Rey nods, reigns herself in and drinks, straight from the tequila bottle which is disgusting and it _burns_. She has to gag it down almost, but it helps to get her focus away from the hole in her heart.

 

“Atta girl,” he says softly and little sardonic. “You know, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over me, kid.” He grabs the bottle from her and downs some of it himself, making a face before he goes on. “You’re supposed to be the one moving on, right? You’ve got a new man and everything.” She thinks he is trying to say it like he’s letting that go, like he _really_ does, but he fails so hard it barely matters that he tried at all.

“God _fucking_ dammit,” she snaps with sudden and booming frustration, so bad she nearly slips up. “I wish you would stop acting like what I feel - what I _felt_ \- for you is somehow _degrading_ to myself. And for your information that new man is part of a life I can’t have right now.”

 

He looks at her sharply, tequila bottle still in hand, and it’s a strange sort of focus, still fuzzy around the edges, but zeroed in on her face.

“What is that supposed to mean?” The way he says it, it’s like his life hangs in the balance of her answer. There’s a tangle of emotion crisscrossing his face, annoyance rapidly chasing confusion and some cousin of hope until what’s left is a vulnerable disbelief. He’s waiting for her, frozen. She looks at that wild face and tries to read in it what she can tell him, on god’s earth. But she is too buzzed up to make up some bullshit and so she just tells him the truth.

 

“I broke things off,” she says in a small voice that comes out more slurred than she expected and she feels rambly. “I didn’t want to put him through this, me being gone for whoever knows how long. Doing things...I...I couldn’t go into this being part of something outside of it.”

 

“You’re finally making a smart decision,” he says after a moment of loaded silence, his voice lowered to match hers. “You don’t want to be in a relationship for this.”

 

She watches him glance down to her lips again and the tension is so thick she could cut it with a knife. What is she supposed to say to that? She can’t as well tell him he’s wrong. Because he would be able to tell she is lying instantly. But what does that say about her? Yes, he could be generally speaking that no one would want to be in a relationship for an undercover mission but in her state, she hears only the innuendo and its glaring, possible consequences: _You wanted to be free to do with me as you please._ It could also mean that he thinks she wants no relationship at all, let alone with him, but to dispute this out loud, and even just in thought to herself, would be very unwise.

 

“It’s not a matter of degradation,” he says, the last word clumsy in his mouth. He must be feeling the effects of the alcohol at least somewhat, less guarded now, but less predictable as well. The atmosphere of ease they had so recently feels miles away with his swing to this heavy seriousness.

“Attachments make you weak,” he goes on, tone flat, before he brushes past her toward the bathroom without a backward glance and takes his sweet time coming back.

 

She has finished and started a new beer before he gets back. She has also switched from the horrible trashy TV to some version of MTV that can’t really be MTV because they still play music videos. She wants to treat the heavy shift in the atmosphere he left in his wake like one of these channels. He made everything so tense and she dislikes it. She’d liked how they were before, likes how the liquor in her bloodstream made his heated glances at her even hotter, collecting like a pool of molten steel in her groin, and she likes the reckless indulgence of their newfound camaraderie that is dangling so closely on the cusp of something more.

 

Thus, Rey chooses to ignore his latest twist and focuses on her spinning head instead. She wants to be drunk now, not fretting but free. One last time, before her life changes probably forever. So she also manages to do two shots in a row before Ben comes back to her.

 

He gives her a sort of apologetic look and sighs. He is still on edge but his features have softened severely, gloomy earnest making way for a sad sort of resignation. She pats the space beside her because she’s not having this attitude right now.

 

She should watch herself. She’ll be dead-weight-drunk in about two tequila’s time. But then again, wasn’t that what she’d wanted? It’s just that she kind of also wants to be awake. And look at Benny some more. The way he flops down beside her so the futon actually shifts with his weight and his long limbs take a while before failing to fit and he sort of splays out his arms and legs like a starfish, taking up space she forfeits a lot more happily than she should.

 

***

 

_“So,” she says, that magnificent woman who looks at him like she’ll drag and yank him away from the place he has talked himself into by his hair if need be. “I thought I’d lost you there.”_

_“Yes, well, I came back, didn’t I?” he says lightly, soothingly, and looks at her, hoping his eyes will say what his brain can’t string into words._

_“Yes you did,” she smiles and looks positively smashed, cheeks aglow with booze and something he doesn’t dare name because he can’t come back from thinking it. “I feel like I got infinitely more drunk while you were gone.”_

 

_“How much could you possibly get down in that time?” He looks over the empty beers and what’s left of the liquor on the table, trying to calculate how much she actually drank. “Am I supposed to be cutting you off at some point? We don’t have to get up early or anything, but…”_

_“Have I even started on traffic cops yet?” she hollers, exaggeratedly and a bit pompous. “I don’t think so -”_

 

_And then her eyes explode in recognition of something he must have missed and jolts upright._

_“Oh my god, I love this song!” Rey gets up, as swiftly and as gracefully as her state allows, which is not very, and grabs for the remote to crank up the TV’s volume to an impressive, booming height that makes Kylo glad he doesn’t really have too many neighbours. It’s an old 80s track, of the variety that has softly been playing in the background since she has changed the channels and he knows it, dimly. The text on the bottom reads “We Belong” by Pat Benatar and it’s a hideous, hideous video they’ve put to the tune. So bad, he wants to laugh._

 

_Rey is blind to it and starts singing along enthusiastically instead of joining in his mockery and jerks away in what could be dance moves._

_“Come on!” she says to him, like he has missed some cue._

 

_“Come on what?” He has no idea what she wants from him._

_“Come on now, Benny, get up and dance with me,” she slurs with a stupid, exalted grin splitting her face. “You know you wanna! So what, you’re all cool and brooding and all but you love this song!!”_

 

_She holds out her hand for him like a child and puts on the most playfully seductive face he thinks she can manage in her state and then cocks an eyebrow to see if it’s working._

_“I do not ‘love this song’,” he protests because he really doesn’t._ She _loves this song, that’s how he knows it, but it’s not a particular favorite beyond its importance to her. He is also being a baby, but he knows and she knows he’s going to give in eventually._

 _“Well, then do it for_ me _,” she coos, amping up her doe eyes into puppy dog ones and something old and familiar breaks free in him. She’s looked at him this way since she first learned what she could make him do from it, back when she was just a little girl. It still works, more’s the pity._

 

_Kylo rolls his eyes with a deeply overdramatic sigh, trying to mask his clear and staggering defeat as him humouring her._

_“Alright, you win, stop batting your eyelashes,” he stands but has literally no idea what he’s doing. He doesn’t dance, and he’d likely need to be completely plastered to try on his own. “You’re being very difficult.”_

 

_Rey takes his hands in hers with glee, pulling him up and away into more open space and he has forgotten how small those hands really are, especially in comparison to his. He wants to squeeze them, just to feel. It’s been so long since he’s held anyone’s hands in earnest. In the time between her a year ago and her in the Cantina Inn, consoling him, no one had really touched him and he didn’t want anybody to. He’d have the odd screw but they were just for pressure control and he never even bothered with names, let alone actual intimacy._

 

 _With Rey, it’s different. He’s never been a touchy person, but her, he could touch constantly, always have one limb attached to one of hers for the rest of his life and never feel crowded._ Her _touch, he yearns for, aches for. The absence of it has made him feel lonelier than he’d ever been before and having it back now, even in such meager portions, touches a light awake in him he’d thought was lost._

 

_When she is pleased with their position, she starts swaying around him, then jumping as the chorus comes on and she shouts it in his face, moving bigger and actually exuding enough strength that he has to follow. Whenever she isn’t singing, she grins and laughs with all the joy of a child._

 

 _As she gets really_ _fucking into it, he’s just mostly watching her, biting his lip a bit to keep from laughing. By the time the chorus rises again and she’s started jumping around and away from him, he catches her around the waist and actually spins her in a circle so her feet only touch back to the ground after they’ve made a 360 spin._

 

_Only now does he actually laugh at the look on her face and it feels foreign in his throat and he’s a bit embarrassed of the snorts and sounds he makes but it’s too dim past the joy to really stick. He’s breathlessly relieved she can make him feel like this, that when he inevitably destroys the moment, she’s so bright and vibrant she can make him remember what it feels like to be laughing and so into her it’s a little scary. It’s the kind of weight she’d given him a year ago, that somehow managed to still make him soar, tethered to the ground, or rather to her, while his very soul took flight. He wants nothing more than to keep her and this moment forever and submit everything Kylo Ren, everything Ben Solo ever was to her, dissolve into her and never look back._

 

_“See! You’re a natural,” she says, grabbing him by the shoulder and looks dizzy for a while but still laughs with him. “I missed that.”_

_He tilts his head in question as she sways. “Missed what?”_

_“Your laugh,” she says and reaches for his face, touching his jaw like a ghost and his lungs quit duty. It’s over too soon, because the damned chorus blares between them again and she joins in, more fervently than before if that’s at all possible._

 

_“We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder,” she all but screams and reasserts the firm hold on his shoulders again, swaying closer with his hands on her hips and cranes her neck up to look at him. “We belong to the sound of the words, we’ve both fallen under, whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for…” she trails off now she has somehow drifted so close to him that he has missed how he’s been swaying along to her rhythm and her face changes, from wild abandon to something almost sullen but definitely urgent._

 

_She lifts her hands again to his head and presses down gently on both sides and holds him there, positively beaming with something that is not joy anymore._

_Kylo hums, softly, under his breath, and it’s the only words he knows, he’s barely even singing it: “We belong.”_

 

_He can feel the moment fairly tremble with possibility, feel it crackle with a secret signal that now, he could tip his head down just so and kiss her, and she might even be gone enough to let him, to let him push for more even, but he doesn’t. He touches his forehead to hers instead, closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at her so close, and goes on swaying with her._

 

_Rey keeps herself in her space, as much as you can call it that, but doesn’t close the distance and if she doesn’t make the move, he won’t make it for her. In his resistance, he very likely dies a little._

 

 _Meanwhile Rey keeps her lips in place just to_ breathe _him in. Slowly, deeply, as the song fades out into another, one that doesn’t match the rhythm they’re keeping anyway. She must feel this, must feel him, truthfully, because he’s been hard from the second she brushed down against him as he set her back down on her feet. He pushes against her, pulls her into him by her ass in what is a completely unconscious, reflexive move. And then she slips up, her breath catching in a gulp, straining and then staggering, and it might be the most erotic, sensual thing he’s ever had to endure while being able to do absolutely nothing about it; how she tries to calm herself down or hold herself back and struggles so profoundly._

 

 _“Rey,” he mutters. He doesn’t have anything to say, but he feels like his chest might burst if he doesn’t release the pressure somehow and the only thing in his mind is_ her _._

 

_It feels wrong to drag this out or take what is so easily in front of him, he can’t say why. Something about her in this state is unbearably tempting in her recklessness but it also isn’t right. He wants her aware of the choice she’d be making, because if he has to watch her regret it in the morning, he’ll probably die. Still, the tiny breath she releases, not quite a moan, but not quite anything else really, almost breaks his resolve._

 

_“Rey,” he says it more firmly, ignoring his own body’s response that is crass in any sense of the word. He could take her now, right where they’re standing, parched and crazed enough to likely break her into pieces. “We should go to bed.” And he pauses to rephrase. “You need to go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a big day.”_

_Instead of answering him, she shakes her head in protest and her hands fall from his face to his arms and fucking dig into his skin with an urgency that nearly unravels him._

 

_Why. Is. She. Testing. Him? So fucking much, Jesus! If she wants this as much as her desperate grip and the silent plea in her eyes suggest, why won’t she come and get it, then? He is trying to be the bigger person here, god dammit, why is she making it so hard? Can’t she see that he is squirming, falling apart under her hands?_

 

_“Ben,” she all but whimpers and if he’d had only one vodka more to drink, he’d be on her in the very next second, her stupid yoga pants would survive just as little as her shirt and he wants her with a desire that is feverish and destructive._

_“Rey, let me go,” he grits out, his very sense of self, of space and time hanging by a very thin threat._

 

_She growls, low and feral and pinches him, but pushes her head into the crook of his neck still, puffing out a breath and then half head-butting him before she rips herself apart from him like it’s the hardest things she has done in a while and glares up at him as if he’s taken something very precious away from her._

_“Thank you.” He is only just barely in control and his whole body aches from the sudden loss of contact. His erection tents his pants and it would be humiliating if he wasn’t way too gone to care. “Now are you going to bed or do I have to put you there myself?”_

 

_It’s dimly reminiscent of when they were both young, with him playing the caretaker, but there’s definitely a very different undercurrent to it now and she hears it and hopefully sees it for the desperate, clingy last attempt of getting her to take that last step that it is. Fuck it, if it’s wrong, fuck it, if she’s drunk. If she says she wants him right now, he’ll have her any which way he can and never think about tomorrow._

 

 _“I’m a big girl. I can handle myself,” she declares tenaciously, laced with spite and innuendo, as if he spurned her for some other reason than godforsaken, fucking_ chivalry _. She gives him another pointed look and heads for the bathroom. She leaves him reeling and breathless, with nothing left to do than dart over to the sink and wash his face and mouth with cold water to beat some sense back into his frenzied brain._

 

_When she comes back, brutally in just a bra and panties, she walks by him quickly and ducks under his covers without another word or look._

 

_Kylo is fully aware she’s pouting and pushing him, but two can play at that game._

 

_He practically rips his shirt over his head, throws it to the ground making as much noise as he can about it, and gives his pants the same treatment, nearly breaks apart the futon so it folds out, and flips off the lights, saving the one next to the bed for last so he has the chance to meet her eye before they’re in total darkness. It’s only an instant and her eyes drop stubbornly down and away from him. Somewhere between the last time he’s whispered her name and she’s whispered his and now, this has turned into a war and they’re equally ridiculous believing that either of them can win it unless they give in. And they won’t._

 

 _He keeps being loud getting onto his shitty substitute for a bed too, punches his pillows and shuffles around for a while. He knows he won’t find sleep yet, and he’s too keyed up to try anyway. He considers going to the bathroom to rub one out, but decides he’s not_ that _much of a gentleman, and it’s his damn house, so he stubbornly doesn’t listen to see if her breathing has evened out before he pushes his underwear out of the way. He’s not silent about it, but neither is he loud. If she’s listening, she’ll hear exactly what he’s doing less than twenty feet from her, but god dammit, that’s going to be her choice._

 

_He comes laughably quick, with a pathetic, choked down whimper and he thinks he can hear her breathing cease entirely but he can’t be sure. He wipes his sticky hands on the sheet, disgusting and stubbornly not paying sensibility any mind, and gets under the blanket. This will be so undignified when he gets up in the morning but he doesn’t care. He hopes she chokes on her lust, pettily enjoying that she can’t seem to get her breathing back in check and falls asleep to it. Before drifting away, he thinks he can hear her curse quietly and hotly in his bed but he could already be dreaming._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it here, we salute and adore you and hope you are happy and satisfied with this update.
> 
> Going forward, we'll see how these two idiots handle their UST...or should we say USF (you know, unresolved sexual FRUSTRATION GOD DAMMIT!) :)
> 
> Your reviews make us happy and warm <3


	4. CHAPTER FOUR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy almost weekend, you beautiful, patient people! It's about to get real up in here, so brace yourselves.
> 
> To those just joining us, welcome, and to those still with us from the beginning, welcome back. You're all wonderful and make the work we put into this so worth it. And without further ado, let's do this!
> 
> [SONG] Breathe (2AM) by Anny Nalick (https://open.spotify.com/track/5auMzVHFr5Zfw6IbKarZ56)

**CHAPTER FOUR: [You Can Tell He's Been Down For A While]**

 

Rey wakes up still drunk and she wishes she would have the memory loss appropriate for such blatant abuse of alcohol, but no. As she stares at the ceiling, blinking reluctantly awake and still unable to move, she remembers nearly everything of last night perfectly. She remembers the trash TV, the beer flowing, herself having the awesome idea that playing a drinking game with Ben is exactly what they need and then tearing out her heart in the process.

 

And then, with her stomach sinking and her cheeks blushing in humiliation, she remembers how she all but threw herself at him at the end of it, after they danced and the fucking lyrics of that song had sobered her up well enough to know exactly what she was doing. She would’ve slept with him last night if he hadn't been so adamant on making her say the words. She can’t begin to negate that or even tell herself she wouldn’t have. She’d made it clear to him too. And he’d neglected the offer. Hurt mixes in with mortification and she wants to sleep again, just a little bit longer. Yes, he'd been into her, into it, enough to jerk himself off not subtly less than twenty feet away from her, which in turn made her so crazy, it only took two, three times bucking into the ball of her hand, through her panties no less, until she'd made herself come to it. But he still hadn't done anything about it after. He'd just gone to sleep. 

 

The rational part of herself is glad for it, because they can't go there, can't cross that line but she is still too intoxicated to give him the proper credit for it. Before long, she is more settled in knowing it's for the best. This part of their story is over, has to be over. She can't give in, there is too much at stake and she needs to be sane for this operation, more so than she would be if she was sleeping with him. She can't even begin to imagine what other shit would come with that. It's better this way, she tells herself, repeatedly. It's really, truly, rationally better.

Ben himself is still dead to the world and he doesn’t stir for another two hours. When he wakes, he finds her bent over a bowl of cereal, her belly rumbling in protest of solid food and she has to excuse herself less than gracefully half an hour later when her body decides it can’t handle anything close to digestion yet. It’s embarrassing coming back and knowing from his face that he heard every last dinosaur-noise she made throwing up likely all contents of her stomach and she gladly ducks into the coffee mug he placed at her vacated place at the table.

 

“Are you okay?” His voice is gentle but there is no great care or affection behind it, maybe not even familiarity and she hates him for it a little bit. She feels miserable and spurned and he is not even sorry.

“I’ll live,” she snaps coldly and it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

 

They talk as little as possible and only so much as needed. Ben once steps out of line, telling her she’s being pretty method, fucked up and hungover in her fittingly Fuckup-Rey get up and she nearly bites his face off in a very different manner than she would’ve in the night. He steers clear of her then, as much as the necessities of preparing for their evening outing and the cramped space of his apartment allows. It seems unbelievable at this point that she would’ve given an arm and a leg less than twelve hours before just to have him touch her.

 

The memory is soured by her sorry physical state, the lingering hangover only dimming down to a continuous unease, and by the stubborn arousal it still burdens her with despite everything. Her head might wish crabs on him but her body, even in its current rumbling detox, still wants him. All through the day, even when she wishes he would evaporate so she could just think clearly for a _second_ , the magnetism between them is ever-present, ever-infuriating. She wonders if he can feel it too or if she is just slowly losing her mind.

 

Trapped in the car with him, on the way to meeting Hux, it is worse than it’s been all day but as they cross over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, her nerves for the actual mission start to drown out the call of his body to hers. It’s real, her undercover assignment is a go, truly. Now all her preparation, all her training and her character has to hold up and pass the scrutiny of outsiders. Outsiders that wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if her true identity was revealed. She could kid herself into believing she was prepared but she feels like a rabbit caught in front of a snake. Her lingering nausea doesn’t help in this one bit - neither does Ben’s somewhat erratic driving.

 

“You gonna make it?” he asks her, taking the turn sharp right after the bridge.

“I am fine,” she replies, a bit testy. “No thanks to you driving like an asshole.”

“Great,” he snaps, ignoring the slight at his road skills. “So sue me if I don’t want you to mess this up because you’re _hungover_.”

Rey growls at him in response, face ripping into a snarl. Condescending piece of shit. And the worst part is that he’s right, she needs to be professional now but feels like a teenager, both with her blazing headache and him berating her like a sibling or a parent - or anything that feels so out of place for him to be by now.

“I said I’m _fine_ ,” she spits, laying the venom on thick to get him off her case and now she really feels like she is sixteen years old again.

“ _Fine_ ,” he shoots right back, not looking at her, eyes pointedly on the road, and reverts the conversation to logistical matters. “We’re going to be meeting at Hux’s place, not an official First Order location, so it’s his rules for the most part.”

 

“Anything I need to know besides ‘Ginger prick with a god-complex and shitty taste in shoes? Runs the trafficking?’,” she recites their lessons with a sort of glum gallows humor.

“That pretty much covers it,” he says and there’s a hint of subdued amusement in his voice and the antagonizing energy radiating off of him ebs a little. “A couple particulars that might bother you… It’s likely there’ll be some women there that are both very young and very wasted.”

“Is that like the as-is of his place? Stuffed with drugged up hookers?” she keeps at the light, sort of mocking tone, happy to be of a mind with Ben for once but there is genuine repulsion underneath it.

Ben hums thoughtfully, taking the change of tone from their conversation with open arms. It seems he’s just as happy to redirect their mutual aggression toward his associate.

“It’s not a constant, but it’s likely enough you ought to be prepared for it,” he tells her. “He _is_ in charge of that aspect, and Hux has never been opposed to the owner of a business sampling his own wares.”

“He takes First Order girls?” Rey’s repulsion only grows. “Isn’t there some rule about not shitting where you eat? Never take your own drugs?”

“Apparently not if you’re a shit-eating bastard like Hux,” he says and it’s clearly drenched in a years’ old, festered resentment. “His method works, though, so no one’s stopping him.”

“How old are we talking?” she asks, more sullen than before, processing what kind of man she will be meeting so shortly and everything she can get on the bastard tonight, she’ll be able to use later. If he is fucking around with underage girls and she’ll be able to prove it, she’ll have him by the balls at the end.

“Legal,” Ben says and snubs that faint hope. “But just barely. I personally think it’s not about the youth, it’s about the power trip. He’s had his hands on the college scene for a while, so he knows how to play them.”

 

“I already _love_ the guy,” Rey grumbles.

“Resentment is good,” he nods, back in his own head. “It’s hard to control a woman who really wants nothing to do with prostitution if you’re trying to get her into it. Remember, your goal is to be non-threatening, but not tempting. Don’t seem like an easy target.”

“How exactly do you want me in there?” She is asking him, levelly, not trying to challenge him and thus, her voice might accidentally slip into something that could be misconstrued as sultry and he picks up on it, if only for an instance. She can tell by the way his grip on the wheel tightens, his knuckles turning white and he focuses his gaze on the road just a little harder.

“Attached,” he says tightly. “Be whatever else feels right, but be attached to me. Hux has no respect for women, obviously, but he will respect my claim, if only because he’s afraid of me. He’ll be dead before he ever admits it, but the only one who can scare the living shit out of him in this neck of the woods is me.”

 

Rey nearly gags with revulsion. She hates few things more than men who feel superior over women because they have a slight difference in genitalia. Fuck all those assholes.

Briefly, Ben looks over at her response and cocks an eyebrow. “What, you were expecting this to be fun?”

“No,” she snaps and slips back into to being a bit of an asshole because she is really on edge and she doesn’t like his tone one bit. “I’m trying to get this out of my system, I’ll be nice and placid for you in just a second.”

Ben answers this with sudden silence and she can hear him glower ahead. Every single fiber of him seems to be irritated with her again but right now, she doesn’t care.

 

“Good,” he says eventually, possibly even snappier than her. “You should get used to it.”

Resisting the urge to put her feet on the dash like a child, she settles for pouting instead and takes a deep, settling breath before she goes on. “So do you want to run me through your play? Or are you gonna wing it?”

“It’s probably best we go with a loose plan,” he considers, then pauses to collect his thoughts. “We’re mostly just introducing you. I’ve been MIA for the last few days, and Hux isn’t the only one annoyed with that, but he’s also the biggest mouth when it comes to talking shit about me, so he’s who we’re showing you off to. You’re the reason for my absence.”

 

“That’s what we’re going with? ‘Sorry, I was AWOL, too busy fucking my deadbeat foster sister I dug up from behind a dumpster’?” She glances over at him. They’d agreed on bringing her in by ways of his connection to her but she didn’t think he’d enter quite so crassly. Something about being paraded around like the new screw for Kylo Ren doesn’t sit right with her, even if it made no difference on the outcome. She knew this was the game but she expected something a little less vulgar, something a little more _meaningful_. Something to reflect the actual truth of whatever it was they were. Then again, who in the First Order would possibly appreciate the romantics of that?

 

“More like, I’m fucking good at my job, and if you assholes need a reason, go ahead and think with your dicks about it. This is mine, and she’s useful,” his voice has risen to an annoyed crescendo and he is in a place she knows he can get mean. “So just be quiet, and be ready to follow my lead.” And then he adds in an afterthought, harsher than the words call for, “You’re not my whore. I won’t treat you as such.”

Tensely, Rey dangles between kind of positively acknowledging that assurance and his own palpable distaste of the whole concept of her being his whore and being endlessly annoyed with him ordering her to be quiet and follow along as if she was a blubbering ditz.

“I…” she starts and stops herself before she can say something even more provoking and calms herself down.

“This is a _meeting_ , nothing more,” he blurts into her sudden silence and he would have talked over her, had she decided to go on. “I’m here to pick up any orders I might have missed and offer a reason for missing them. I wouldn’t make a big deal of you if this were the truth, but I _would_ need to show that the new face belongs to me. So that’s what we’re doing.”

 

“I get it, I’m not an idiot,” she says because he’s been over this and yes, she understands. What she doesn’t say is that she is terrified, because she has no idea what to do and if she can do it, and fuck, she is 23, she isn’t equipped to deal with this, any of it, neither Ben nor the mission. Truthfully, she is just so afraid that absolutely everything will fail and she has everything to lose, including her life. And his, possibly. Which doesn’t help with her fear.

“No, you’re not,” he sighs, extremely put-upon. “You’re going to need to think like one though. If you’d spent the last few years trashing your life, you stop thinking quite so hard about things. You don’t have to have deep motivations, you just...do what you have to and follow along.”

 

It sounds like he’s speaking from experience and this is what enables Rey to pluck up the courage to tell him the truth, because she needs someone and she feels very alone and he has lived through all of this and he should be able to help, should feel obligated to, even.

“I am scared,” she says in a small voice that holds up just barely.

Ben is silent for a second but then he signals and pulls the car into an alley and parks so he can speak to her fully. His face has gone from stoney disdain to softly glowing concern so quickly, it seems like he’s been replaced with someone else.

“Honestly, that’s probably good,” he says gently, low and deep. “Fear keeps you aware, on your toes, but I swear you’ll be fine. Whatever else happens, this is my world and I’ll make sure you get through it.”

Rey taps into the intensity of his demeanour, pays it back in kind in a stare that is supposed to reach into his core and then puts her hand on his where it palms the stick and squeezes with urgency. _Promise me_ , she says without words and she hopes he gets it.

 

“It won’t be pleasant, but you’ll be okay, I promise,” he says. “You didn’t make it this far for nothing.”

He waits patiently for her to collect herself again, before he turns the car around and returns to their route. They keep quiet for a while, before Rey’s heavy conscience gets the better of her.

“Sorry for being a bitch,” she half whispers, half mumbles and means it.

“Turnabout's fair play,” he shrugs and he’s on the cusp of sincerity but hacks it into pieces the next second. “Just don’t freak out or puke in my car and we’ll call it even.”

Sometimes she wonders if he is simply inept or too scared to share his honest to god emotions in moments like these.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” she says as he drives to the curb of a fancy looking apartment building with a valet jumping to take over Ben’s shiny, expensive car. “So. See you on the other side?”

“Meet you there,” Ben says and swallows, taking a second too long taking in her face for it to not be deliberate. For a moment, he looks like he is going to say something but he stops himself and simply nods.

 

The building is expensive, decidedly upper class and while Ben in his tailored suit and dark grey wool coat fits in perfectly, Rey looks as out of place as a junkie in a country club. The few people they come across give her glances one would call “scandalized” at best.

 

Hux’s penthouse is apparently two stories high but they never see the second floor. Ben knocks at the door, stands in front of the camera that transmits his grim expression to a security detail inside and the burly man lets them pass with a curt nod.

“Mr. Ren,” he says.

“Walter,” Ben replies flatly and pushes past him. Rey follows, keeping his pace evenly.

 

The apartment is pristine, whites and beiges on slick, unassumingly luxurious modern and cubist designs and it looks as soulless as to be expected of a man like Hux, who from all she’s heard of him likely has a rock for a heart. If anything, his furniture does nothing to pull the focus from the at least seven girls in skimpy lingerie who flitter about - some of them moving ethereal and others already slouching and slumping. Every eye Rey catches is glossed over by drugs. It’s a revolting sight, especially considering that not a single one of them looks like they could pass for twenty. They seem to wait on Hux, hovering and presenting themselves and the only thing that’s missing is him having one of them on a leash by his feet. In lieu of that atrocity, he has the youngest looking of them all draped on his lap and he looks away from her leisurely, arrogantly when Ben stops halfway between the assortment of sofas that create the center of the room.

 

“She should be feeding him grapes,” Rey whispers up to him but his features turn to metal.

“Be quiet,” he hisses back tensely.

“The prodigal son returns,” Hux bellows then, without humor or affection.

“I see you haven’t managed to fuck things up too badly in a few days,” Ben notes and there’s a different cadence to his voice, one she hasn’t heard before. It’s like an underlying snarl, an edge of enduring impatience and a layer of ever-present violence she has never picked up from him before. “I’ve enjoyed my vacation and it’d be a shame to ruin it so fast.”

 

Hux remains outwardly impassive but there’s a hint of a twitch at the corner of his eyes that speaks of frustration and Rey likes something for the first time since she has stepped off the elevator.

“Watch it, Ren,” he says snidely and gives Rey a throwaway glance. “Wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your newest acquisition.”

“Because your den of iniquity isn’t embarrassing at all,” Ben bites back and doesn’t give him a chance to respond. “I have been admittedly...preoccupied, so I suppose it’s best to make an appearance in spite of the company. How’s business these days?” He moves closer, pulling Rey along with him but deliberately doesn’t introduce her.

 

“Sweetheart, get my guests something to drink, will you?” Hux says to the girl in his lap and pushes her up harshly before sitting straighter on the sofa. “Business is good on my end. Because I actually care enough to show up. Phasma has some _errands_ she needs you to run.”

“Phasma has errand boys,” Ben says, not impressed with Hux treating him like he’s one of those. “And if that’s all, perhaps I should’ve taken my time. It’s not like assignments that actually require skill pop up with great regularity.”

 

Going from how the ginger’s lips twitch, he understood perfectly that Ben meant to imply that while Hux may show up like a good dog, Ben is the one in possession of a valuable skillset.

“You’re being forwarded detailed directions from Snoke personally via email as we speak,” he says condescendingly, forgoing a comeback and Rey wonders if it’s because of character strength or because he simply has none and she’d prefer it to be the second. “I have chosen not to discuss business with you in front of such a new face. I’d presume you understand the precaution.”

“It’s unnecessary, I assure you,” Ben retorts and puts his arm around Rey. “She’s no one, just a remnant of my past, but pretty and useful. You remember I had my uses when I was younger?”

 

The disgusting, patronizing possessiveness in his voice is just for show but the panic that makes his grip on the small of her back tighter is real. He doesn’t like how the attention is on Rey now one bit and they both make note of Hux, finally taking full notice, leering at her in a once-over as if he’s scanning her for parts he can use, like a scrap dealer, like she is being put up for sale and he is judging her worth.

“She _is_ pretty, if a little run down. But I could use her,” he states. “She’d fit right into my little establishment on the Upper East Side, she looks young enough...give her a short skirt, do something with that hair, and these rich bastards will bend backwards to fuck her. It’ll be just like fucking those perky daughters they can’t touch. Are you sure you can’t spare her?”

 

“She’s not for you,” Ben growls, ice cold.

“Alright, alright,” Hux sighs, thoroughly unlikeable. “I wouldn’t want to take your shiny new toy away. Maybe later, once you’re well and through with her. My doors are always open.” Only now does he address Rey. “The things you could do in my profession...put those little tits to good use. You could make a fortune. You look like you’d have a great time sucking the money straight out of their shrivelled cocks.”

At this point, Ben’s grip on her has turned into a death grip so hard she will have bruises come morning. He is barely keeping himself sitting down and she wonders if he’s holding on to her so tightly to protect her or to keep himself from leaping at Hux.

 

“You’re not a really nice person, are you?” Rey says, despite Ben’s fingernails digging into her flesh.

“No, sunshine,” Hux chuckles. “I’m really not.” Then he turns to Ben, still highly amused. “Feisty, that one. Bet she bosses you around, huh?”

“You underestimate loyalty, Hux, you always have,” Ben replies and it seems like he can barely pry his jaw loose from how hard he’s grinding on his teeth. “Treat people like shit and it’s what you’ll get back. Treat them well, however…”

 

And then he trails off and quicker than she could have anticipated, he is on her. The hand that held her just moments before is ghosting up and down her back, the other one traveling across her arm, then over her thighs, then grabbing her waist. It’s dizzying, distracting and makes it hard to breathe. That familiar magnetic pull is back with a staggering vengeance. Rey grabs hold of his thigh pressing against her and she can’t stifle a moan, to her great shame. She tries to keep her eyes on Hux, to stay focused on the task at hand, she really does, but when Ben leans in to nibble at her neck and jaw, her eyes flutter shut.

 

Completely on its own, her hand slips up higher on his thigh and he bites down. His rumble of approval travels from his mouth through the skin of her neck, and it’s unclear whether Ben is trying to make a power play through her, show off their reciprocated connection or if it’s a sincere, helpless and automatic response. Under great strain, she opens her eyes and finds Hux watching them in a mix of curiosity and arrogant distaste. When the girl from earlier comes back with their drinks - clear ones, with soda that neither of them will touch - Hux grabs her by the arm.

 

“Shannon, am I not treating you all _very well_?” he asks her and Ben’s lips halt on her skin.

“My name is Chanty,” the girl slurs in mild, drowsy indignation.

Hux turns and looks at her like she’s the biggest, most inconsequential moron on the face of the earth.

“Do I look like I give a _fuck_ what your name is? Go take those clothes off and wait in my room.” Then he turns his attention back on her and Ben. “That’s a lovely demonstration, Ren, but if I was in the mood for a live sex show, I’d order one.”

 

“Like I said, Hux.” He pulls Rey slightly away from him with a hand around the back of her neck. “She’s not for you. But if you don’t have anything further of importance to discuss with me, we’ll be going.”

“You can tell me who the fuck she is before trying to bring some floozy into our organisation,” the ginger snaps violently. “She looks like you picked her from the roadside. If you want to keep her for yourself, you’d better come up with something more convincing than your own selfishness.”

“I already told you, you son of a bitch,” Ben says, picking up his tone with ease. “She’s someone from my youth. Sadly, she didn’t get in with the same caliber of folks I did.” He is dripping with sarcasm as he says this and goes on. “But she has experience in these parts, familiarity with New York’s underbelly I’ve lost some track of over the years. And you’ve said yourself she looks young. We can clean her up a bit and have two tracks - open the college market back up. I’m sure a _businessman_ like yourself can see the value of that is more than a single addition to your sleazy club.”

 

Hux deliberates this for a second, annoyance shuffling out of the way for begrudging acceptance. “Fine. I’ll have her background checked anyway.”

“Rey Kenobi,” he says it like a gunshot, like he doesn’t want to give Hux even that much. “Be my guest. Fucking check away, if you’re so paranoid.”

“Just thorough,” Hux says and then turns to her with an evil smile. “Miss Rey. It was a pleasure. Once you get tired of him, you know where to find me.” He graces Ben with just another quick look, like he is the king again and he is tired of their audience. “You can go.”

“Get bent, Hux,” Ben snarls and rises, keeping Rey close. “I hope one of your girls bites your dick off one of these days.”

 

As soon as they’re in the elevator, Rey lets out a growl too loud for the small space and laced with repulsion.

“He’s disgusting,” she spits. “And his shoes _are_ awful.”

Immediately, Ben bursts out laughing, slightly hysterical and like a whip. It takes him a few floors to get himself back to normal and it seems the tension he’s held in his body for the whole meeting is fading slowly but steadily.

“You did well,” he acknowledges. “He’s...yes, disgusting is the right word.”

“I feel like I need to wash out my brain with bleach.” This whole show he made was abhorrent and she still can’t believe people as vile and cruel actually exist. “He looked at me like I was a piece of meat. Like I wasn’t even _human_.”

 

“And that was the man that brought me into this whole operation,” he says bitterly. “Trust me, he can be very charming if he thinks he can use you. Believe it or not, it’s best he didn’t ingratiate himself with you. He must see you’re not going to get involved with him.”

“Well, then I guess I played my part right,” she tries a smile and feels pleased that it still works. She is actually a little bit proud of herself that she made it out okay and the prospect of going out again is a little less scary now. Unprompted, her stomach grumbles a bit and she realizes that she hadn’t had solid food since breakfast and now that she isn’t a tense ball of stress anymore, her body demands sustenance. “I’m hungry. Is it weird that I’m hungry?”

 

“Your body’s probably catching up. I can make something at the apartment,” he says. “I don’t want to be around people right now.” By people, he means _other than her_ , she knows him well enough by now. No matter how much they fight, no matter how she annoys him, he’ll always want her close. It should be troubling but instead Rey can only find a warm, consolidating approval in herself.

“Me neither. Present company not included,” she says and waits to see if he may be receptive to a compliment. She thinks he might be but can’t be sure so she has to wait and see. “Thank you for having my back in there. I...felt safe, all things considered.”

He takes her hand and squeezes, gently. “You’re welcome. I promised, didn’t I?” The way he stands there, lets go of her hand and studies his shoes, he looks like he doesn’t know how to deal with being good at something _good_ for a change. Like he suddenly doesn’t know who he is anymore.

 

***

 

_There’s a fragile peace between them when they get back to his apartment. Rey’s relief at having passed the first trial is almost palpable, but while she’s reassured, Kylo is unsteady in the face of what the interaction has done to him. He’d known, of course, that there was a level of danger involved, and that Rey would be at his side among the criminals he deals with day to day, but the confrontation with Hux has put it in perspective._

_It’s been a long time since Kylo has been genuinely invested in the outcome of a meeting with the bastard. He can usually walk away with a flippant sense of irritation and nothing more. Now, he’s a mess of nerves, going through the motions of cooking something simple for the comfort of the routine. He loses himself in it a bit, his mind wandering to the failsafes he should put in place. By the time he sets a plate of spaghetti carbonara in front of Rey, he’s decided they need to discuss her limits and how to more smoothly communicate with her in the field._

_Men such as himself get their point across with action rather than words, and he needs to be able to rely on Rey picking up what he needs her to do without having to speak to her about it. The stress of not knowing whether Rey would respond correctly or pull the brakes on him and put herself in danger had been almost as strong as his near-violent anger in the face of Hux’s brief interest in her._

 

_He doesn’t bring it up that night, letting his ideas spin out through the quiet evening. There’s every chance if he brings it up right away, he’ll do something stupid, like demand Rey just stay here always, where she’ll be safe, when he knows how important this plan is - who and what is at risk beyond the two of them. Instead Kylo gives his concerns time to simmer and coalesce into a plan rather than a gut response._

 

_“We’re going to need to discuss some kind of system to signal each other,” he says over breakfast. “I can’t just rely on you reading my expression, especially when that would be obvious in front of Order members.”_

 

_The abrupt way he drops the topic on her gives Rey a moment of pause, and Kylo has a few seconds to appreciate the bizarre cross of domesticity and business. She has a trickle of milk at the corner of her mouth, never able to eat like a normal person. It sends a familiar pulse through his chest that he dutifully ignores._

 

_“You mean like safe words?” she asks when her mouth is empty, toying with her cereal. “Like when you say ‘banana’, I duck?”_

 

_“If you like,” Kylo says, strangely light with the ease of the morning. “But I was thinking more along the lines of if you need to do something you wouldn’t think to, and I think hand signals would be more appropriate. I’m not exactly about to go spouting off various fruits in the middle of conversation.”_

 

_He can see that Rey wants to pick up on the weak threads of a joke, and he almost wishes she would. It’s feeding into his own weaknesses though, and it’s for the best that Rey settles and accepts the gravity of the conversation he needs to have. She takes a breath and visibly prepares herself._

 

_“What did you have in mind?”_

_“Well, first off, I need to know what your limits are,” he starts. It’s a question he should have asked before, but he’d been so busy plotting the acts he’d forgotten Rey might have some moral stance or official order keeping her from complying. “There won’t be any call for you to do anything sexual with anyone but me, but in terms of violence, involvement in drug trades, where do you draw the line?”_

 

_“There’ll be a call for me to do sexual things with you?” she asks, and of course she picks up on that one. He can’t decide if it’s a defense mechanism to keep from having to face the stark reality that he’s asking her if she’s alright with drug trafficking and assault, possibly murder, over breakfast cereal. It’s that or she really is trying to drive him insane. They have a precarious balance, one always pushing for more, and Kylo is waiting for the moment when one of them pushes and the other falls. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s bound to, he can feel it._

 

_“Were you not there for our meeting with Hux?” he says, calling back to that moment of weaponized intimacy. He’s still not sure Rey had followed the layers of it, but she’d reacted well, a positive response not earned by a high or beaten-in obedience, but genuine desire. It was the point he’d been trying to make - that Rey was his through no coercive means and therefore could not be bought or sold._

 

_“I’m not saying we’re going to be fucking on a table to kick off the First Order orgy,” he goes on with a touch of black humor. “But obviously there’s some touching involved. As you saw.”_

_Rey laughs but it crosses from genuine humor into a bit of a manic chuckle pretty quickly. Still, before he can puzzle out what it means, she pulls herself together._

_“Okay,” she says. “Everything I do under deep cover like this is pretty much up to my own judgement. As long as I don’t harm civilians I have...as they say, a license to kill. I don’t know if I want to. But I will if it’s necessary and I have done it before.”_

 

_Kylo just nods because he doesn’t want to expand on that. It will probably be asked of her at one point. If not for necessity then simply for initiation. There’s an unspoken rule that as long as you haven’t killed for the First Order, you’re not part of the First Order and that’s what they’re going for with her. It will happen, sooner or later and he half wishes he could keep her away from it all._

 

_“And as far as the drug-running goes?” He asks, moving on to the most pressing concern. “We’re working with Phasma today, and I don’t want to get into a messy situation if you aren’t allowed to transport or sell.”_

_“As I said. Anything goes. Anything to keep the cover intact,” Rey says. “So long as I don’t get some high school kids hooked on heroin. Technically, I would be allowed to. But that’s where I draw the line. If it can be helped, I don’t want to get people into the really heavy stuff.”_

_“At least for today, we’ll be dealing with people who’ve been in the shit for a while,” he replies. “It’s rare I have contact with new clients these days, that’s more for the lower rungs. Your cover story would put you there, but for now, you don’t have to worry about it. Everyone we handle deserves what’s coming to them.”_

_Rey makes a face like she doesn’t agree but thankfully doesn’t press the issue. They don’t have time to argue over who has the right to decide if people live or die._

_“So...gestures?” she asks instead. “I guess making finger-guns is a bit on the nose?”_

_“It might not be, actually…” He thinks about this for a second, getting a little lost in the technicalities that would allow for such infantile behavior. “I have license with you I wouldn’t normally have. If it comes off as something from a man to a woman he’s sleeping with, it’s a free pass to levity. So, why not? If you need to make the kill shot, that can be the signal.”_

 

 _“I don’t know,” she mutters and looks at him like she did not expect him to take her seriously at all. “I was joking, I think I can’t be_ that _cynical before I’m about to kill someone.”_

_This sends his head down immediately and he messes with his cereal, a little ashamed of himself._

_“Yeah, I can understand that,” he says. It’s been too long that he does what he does- He’s lost touch on deference or respect for random lives a long time ago. “How about something more like...if I touch my right temple with my left hand?”_

 

_“Push your hair out of your face after,” she says after considering him for a while and her eyes drift from his up to his forehead. Her gaze is soft and unfocused, like she is imagining him doing it right this second and he has to sit on his hands to keep from doing it just for her benefit._

_“Alright,” he says and swallows. “Most other things will be able to be given as a verbal command, so that shouldn’t be an issue. Otherwise, we might need something to get across if I need you to be silent or play up the relationship portion of this. You can certainly come up with your own ‘safe words’ if you need me to get you out of a situation or bring it down.”_

 

 _“Tap my wrist twice if I’m in reach, if not, your own,” she says and continues, coming up with it as she goes. “If I’m in trouble, I’ll say something involving..._ ghosts _. Is that okay?”_

_“Sure,” he says with his face scrunching because that’s weird but he’ll do it._

_She picks up on his reaction and leans forward to explain. “It’s something a professor of mine said to do in Quantico, it’s better to have a weird word you can put in many sentences and use in a multitude of situations because you never know what you’ll get into. Banana is actually a_ horrible _choice.”_

_“It really is,” he says. “Now, do you have or want a weapon to take with you?”_

_“I left my work gun behind. But I have a spare. Black market issue,” she says._

 

_“Good. Bring that with you today.” He is relieved that she took the precaution. It wouldn’t be an issue to get her a gun but it’s nice that she thought to bring one herself. “Don’t let Phasma know you have it unless something goes really goddamn sideways. You’re not far enough in that I should be trusting you with your own firearms, fucking or not.”_

_“Okay,” she says and he notices that she hasn’t touched her breakfast in a while now._

_“Eat up, kid,” he says softly. “You can’t go around bringing down the bad guys from within on an empty stomach.”_

_Something twists in her features and her gaze on his and she smiles, just a little and shoves a huge spoonful of cereal into her face, so that her cheeks puff out and milk runs down both sides of her mouth._

_“Gross,” he smiles, oddly touched at the inkling that this was for him but unsurprised at the sloppy execution. She never knew how to eat after all._

 

_To Kylo’s unending relief, Phasma takes an immediate liking to Rey. Not only is it a rarity for her to encounter a woman in their line of work, but Phasma has a talent for reading people, and she can tell right away that Rey is no wilting waif. She treats Rey as a part of the team almost from the beginning, speaking frankly with the both of them. They’re on duty taking care of some higher level dealers this time, thankfully avoiding the need for Rey to prove her knowledge of the local slums._

_It’s always been a stress reliever working with Phasma, and now is no different. Where the meeting with Hux had put Kylo on edge with tension, it’s easy to fall into the familiarity of show up, posture, get what they came for. When they’ve been out for a couple of hours, he and Phasma begin to take a step back, letting Rey do more than just watch._

 

_It’s more pickups than drop offs, collecting cash and the promise of cooperation, but Rey is asked to handle one drop in particular. It’s a guy in the Bronx whose leg Kylo had broken once. He doesn’t seem to have let that go, though Kylo had been authorized to shoot him outright, and he refuses to show his cowardly face if Kylo is present. It’s habit more than policy that they work in pairs, but it means Phasma is walking into the alley with Rey while he white-knuckles the steering wheel of his car. He could be out of the car and across the street in less than a minute, but it doesn’t lower his anxiety any. He can’t see every detail, but he can see their contact slide out of the shadows, and he can see Phasma taking the lead, Rey backing her. She’s just the outline of a body, but he can see even from here the threat of her posture, the way she’s solidly grounded, supporting Phasma._

_His shoulders relax a bit when he can see a successful trade off, Phasma handing over the goods, her hand latching onto the man’s shoulder for a second. Kylo knows from experience that she’s gripping him tight enough to bruise, a palpable show of strength, but he also knows the guy hardly needs it. He’d be pissing himself if Kylo showed his face, he’s not likely to make the mistake of ‘misplacing’ what he’s meant to be distributing again._

 

_Phasma gives him a short nod when they return, Rey taking the backseat in deference to Phasma’s position. It’s a small thing, but Kylo can safely take it for approval. While compliments from Phasma are few and extremely far between, her disapproval has always been obvious and rapidly gained for those who deserve it. Her unspoken acceptance of Rey eases some of his worry, makes it easier to breathe through the laser focus he’s had all day._

_The email from Snoke is sitting opened on his phone, directions to an abandoned factory building in Hoboken where they’re to meet their contact. He doesn’t know it yet, but the man they’re meeting with won’t be walking away. Snoke has lost patience with his attempts to hand-wave away missing profits, and he hadn’t received the message Phasma delivered months ago to his apparently weak jawbone. It’s a kill order, though Kylo hadn’t confirmed it until they were already enroute with Phasma. He’s been turning over an idea in his head since then, and he’s not sure if it would be better to try to communicate it to Rey or not._

 

_When they arrive, the man in question is expecting them, but he clearly isn’t expecting Kylo. He’s not a small man, but the way his face pales when Kylo follows Phasma inside diminishes him._

_“Ren,” he tries, a weak smile wavering on his face, and Kylo hates that - the simpering smile and the name. Hux has a habit of using his adopted last name sans honorific, and it stiffens Kylo’s spine instinctively. “I didn’t know you would be-”_

_“Yes, I realize that,” Kylo cuts him off. “I imagine if you had any idea, you wouldn’t have been able to make this meeting.”_

_The laugh Kylo gets is strained and more fake than his faltering grin. For a second, Kylo tries to remember the man’s name - maybe Rodin or something, but it doesn’t matter. He won’t need it shortly._

_“Look,” he starts, changing tack and putting up a front of being frank with them. “You know I’ve been loyal to the First Order. I don’t know what reports you’re getting, but it’s been on lockdown in these parts, cops crawling the streets, and you sure don’t buy them off like we used to. I’m doing what I can, just ask Snoke, I’ve been good for business, he’ll understand.”_

 

_Phasma’s unimpressed look gets across everything Kylo could possibly say. They only start trying to reason with him when they know they’re really in trouble. He stalks closer to the man, tracks the motion of his shaking hands and wonders cruelly how long it’ll take before he drops to his knees. Really, Kylo hasn’t done anything yet, but he’ll let the poor sap talk himself out if that’s what makes him happy._

_Kylo’s silence drags the panic out of him eventually, as per usual. His face is an impassive mask, cold and hard, and he lets himself revel in it just a bit. He wouldn’t say he takes pleasure in his hits, per say, but there is an undeniable thrill to watch a person crumble in the face of his own dispassion._

_“Come on,” the man says, eyes darting between Kylo and the two women behind him, his voice cracking so that Kylo can hear the plea in it. “What do you want me to say?”_

_“I want you to say you know what you’ve done,” Kylo answers smoothly. “You’ve been stealing from the First Order and you know what happens to people who steal from Snoke.”_

_Kylo keeps his focus locked on the man before him, watches him swallow convulsively and back up, almost tripping over a low table. He doesn’t dare look at Rey to see if she’s picked up on the fact that she’s about to witness a murder. Depending on how pitiful the man’s begging is, she might be doing more than witnessing._

_“You can’t-” he starts, and Kylo crosses the room with long, quick strides, his annoyance bringing his hand up to lock around the man’s throat, silencing him and halting his breath. His knees go out, and Kylo’s grip follows so he’s leaned down and nearly hissing in his face._

_“I promise you I_ can _.” He can feel the attempt to swallow, breathe against his palm, and lets the man go, roughly so he falls to hands and knees, gasping. He straightens, coming to his full height and letting his mouth twist with disdain. If he’s not mistaken, the man is moments from pissing himself, the pitiful creature._

_“You accumulate power,” Kylo goes on, voice tight and falsely easy. “You accumulate wealth, and when it comes time to pay your dues, you forget. You claim loyalty, and yet offer me excuses like that will save you. We don’t need excuses in the First Order.”_

_He shoves a foot into the man’s shoulder, forcing him up and back to slam into the rubble on the ground he’d almost tripped on. He stays that way, tears forming in his eyes and frightened into stillness._

_“Snoke is done suffering your incompetence,” he tells the man, and there it is, a telltale wet patch as the man’s eyes and bladder both give up the fight. “I’m not here for a negotiation, I’m here to end our business with you.”_

_“Please,” he gasps out, rocking forward so his head touches the floor in a show of submission. Kylo can’t muster up anything but contempt for it. He’s a liar and a killer in the service of liars and killers, but at least Kylo has some backbone, unlike this sad wreck of a man. Still, he’s already defeated, no threat to Kylo or anyone else, if the way he’s crying into the ground is any indicator. If Kylo is going to ask this moment of Rey, there could be no better time._

 

***

 

There is something equal parts terrifying and mesmerising about Ben being like this. He truly doesn’t even seem like Ben anymore. This might as well be Kylo Ren, she thinks, watching him tread heavily and assert so much stifling control over the situation, she wonders why the guy cramped before them hasn’t pissed himself a lot sooner. The stench of urine wades through the stale factory air to them and she scrunches her nose. Beyond shame, the creature on the ground is crying pitifully and looks more like a child than a man.

“I’m not the one you should be begging,” Ben is practically spitting at him, then glances over at Rey for a moment, and she holds his gaze. She can take it, he can go on doing what he does and so she nods. “You’re not good enough to warrant me.”

 

This is a weird thing to say. Ben looks pointedly at her and then turns his attention to the beggar, stepping around him, like an animal circling his prey, being careful not to step into the trickle of piss pooling on the concrete. “My friend, however… I think it’s time you learn that even the new girl knows not to fucking steal from us. And the consequences when you do.”

Ben snaps up from the slight crouch he held so his words would carry down, turns to walk to Rey and presses the gun into her hand. She stares up at him, blankly. He can’t be serious. It’s her first day out, he can’t mean to have her kill someone already. She rips her eyes open, knowing no one but Ben can see. He breathes evenly and his eyes flicker back to Phasma who is still standing behind them with all the calm in the world. This is for her, this is so Rey can leave this place having Phasma in her bag.

“Come on, darling,” he purrs and leans in to kiss her forehead lightly and butt out again so she can see his face. “There’s always a first time.”

And then he skims his fingers up over his temple, then brushes them through his hair and Rey is glad she has picked this signal. She loves when he does this, loves how his elegant, long fingers part and divide and then smooth out his full black waves, loves how they fall back into shape so willingly under his touch. She can focus only on the immediate memory when she is going to do something unspeakable. Like take a life.

She has killed before in the line of duty. Twice actually, which is unusual for such a young agent - but that is what happens when you dabble in Organized Crime from the get go. She hasn’t lost much sleep over it because it was self defense both times and she would’ve died had she not killed the men. But this is different. The creature that rocks back and forth, hunched over like a dog before her is unarmed and begging for his life. This isn’t self defense, it’s an execution and her heart shrivels in her chest at the reinforcement of this truth. Ben has meanwhile stepped behind her, to get to Phasma and Rey feels so alone in the world, she wants to weep.

 

She shouldn’t, but she turns her head over her shoulder and catches Ben’s eye. She is infinitely ashamed that she isn’t strong enough to pull the trigger. She should be placid and beyond caring but she just can’t do this alone.

“Just ghosts of the past,” she says to him with a shrug but enough of her genuine reluctance seeping through that any onlooker would believe she has known this man from her walk of life and has a history of being afraid of him, or something on the lines of that. Something that gives her pause before killing. Ben nods almost imperceptibly and she can tell he understood her code.

He adopts an air of condescending comfort and almost strolls over to her, taking his time. “It’s alright. No one’s coming for him, you won’t get in trouble,” he says very softly and steps in to press himself along her back and turns her to face the man on the floor, arm raised to level the gun at him, his hand is wrapped around her own so he’s almost aiming for her, but her finger is the one on the trigger.

 

Rey swallows hard and tries to adjust her stance to factor in the body flush against her, tries to push her focus through the sudden additions of sensory input; the muscles of his chest, hard though his jacket against her back, his hair tickling her cheek with ghostly brushes, the way he smells, like soap and a distorted sense of home. It’s suddenly a lot harder to keep her head where it should be.

“Ben-,” she whispers under her breath and she doesn’t really know what she wants from him.

He cuts her off sharp, immediately and nearly inaudible; she alone can hear him now.

“You can do this, Rey. It’s the Order, he’s a criminal. I’ve got you, but I can’t pull the trigger for you.”

Unable to keep a shudder from rolling down her spine, her pulse quickening with adrenalin, she backs into him for sheer support and then, like a sudden surge of unbidden energy, there is the matter of chemistry splurging into the moment and what always happens when they so are close, happens. Which is that things start to churn and erupt low in her belly and it’s tingling and it’s wrong and she is despicable for even noticing it.

She is standing over a crouching, whimpering man about to kill him, yet her body hums all along her backside, everywhere she is connected to _him_. This is so blatantly wrong, she should run for the woods immediately and never come back.

Ben shifts behind her and first she thinks he’s moving away but instead he moves in further, reforms the connection, rehashes the friction. She wants to fault him for it but she is pretty sure it’s not a deliberate move at all. It’s muscle memory.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers very softly against her face, dipping his head down so his lips brush her ears and waits for her to obey. Everything is darkness for Rey then. But it does nothing to alleviate the tension between them, if anything, it ups it. “Now fire.”

“I can’t see,” Rey says as she’s cocking the gun and her voice wavers with his nose touching her temple, his breath hot on her skin. He is occupying every last inch of her brain and it’s disconcerting at best and exhilarating at worst. She has a job to do.

She urges herself to _snap out of it, Kenobi_.

“I can,” Ben says quietly and then more assertive than before: “ _Fire.”_

 

She takes another deep, resonating breath against him, bracing herself and she thinks she might finally be able to do it but then she feels his body’s response, feels him stir against her and her own body, her whole system booms in reply, going off like a fuse bomb. She is amped up in a matter of milliseconds and for half a heartbeat, the world falls away. The man before them whimpers but she has zero capacity to deal with this right now. For the hint of a second there is only Ben and her, alone in the universe and the secret promise their bodies give each other. _I’ll burn for you, always._ She whispers his name again and this time it’s not about the gun in her hand or what he expects her to do with it.

“If you don’t shoot, this is going to go very badly,” he hisses rawly, barely controlling his volume and digs his free hand around her thigh hard, pulling her against his hips and groin in a way that must be unconscious. “I’m not _Ben_ right now. Remember that and pull the _fucking trigger_.”

 

 _Click, boom_. And Rey’s shot. The moment the gun goes off she opens her eyes and sees the bullet connect and brains splatter across the ground instantly. She also sees Ben watching her watching from the corner of her eye. It’s like his gaze sears little holes in her skull and he keeps his grip firm on her, a couple of seconds too long and draws a breath that falls too low, staggers, makes him shiver and his pale cheeks come alive with a flush she nearly misses.

Abruptly he steps away, shakes himself and moves to stand between her and the body but not before prying the gun out of her hand. Rey is empty. She has just ended a life, killed a man she didn’t even know. Yes, he might’ve been First Order but he was still someone’s son, maybe someone’s husband, someone’s father. And from Ben’s logic, he himself could be killed with no second thoughts because he was part of the organization too and that possibility sets off another potpourri of unwelcome notions.

“Well done,” he says, loud so Phasma can hear but keeps his eyes on her face and she searches something in it although she doesn’t know what it is. She is torn between too many conflicting emotions to feel just one distinctly.

Ben keeps his darkened, blazing eyes and his usually open face very deliberately blank, but maybe there’s something at the edge of his expression, something that if he would allow it would bloom into sorrow or perhaps remorse. The moment seems to last forever but is over before it began.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says and when he moves, she moves. Like they’re tethered.

 

_***_

 

_Kylo escorts Rey to his car, leaving her there alone for the moment. She deserves to have a moment to herself, and he needs to check in with Phasma. Rey may have done well enough, but Phasma is no fool, she’ll have picked up on Rey’s hesitance, seen the weakness it might present._

_“You care about her,” Phasma says, distinctly not a question. Kylo has left behind the bullshit with her whenever possible, so he only nods acknowledgment. “Don’t let it become a problem, Kylo.”_

_“It won’t,” he says with certainty. Inside the pocket of his jacket, his hands are fists, but he can manage the veneer for Phasma’s searching gaze. “You know I can handle business.”_

_“I know how you’ve behaved recently,” Phasma starts. “And I know you’ve been more on the ball with her here than you have been in months. And she may have some learning to do, but she will follow you.”_

_They share a short silence, each contemplating the other. Phasma’s approval is valuable for their mission, as well as giving Kylo confidence that they might be able to pull this off. The casualty of Rey’s peace of mind has to be worth it if it will help him keep her alive, finish her mission in one piece._

_“If caring about some little girl is what it takes to get you back on track,” Phasma says after a few breaths, “so be it. It will be nice to have the old Kylo Ren back.”_

 

_There is no way to respond to that honestly. He isn’t sure he can go back to the old Kylo Ren anymore. He may have, with distance and time, but with Rey in his life Kylo can’t claw his way back to being the unfeeling killer he was. Even this, the death of a man whose name he has already forgotten, means more than it should. He can’t untangle whether that’s a result of his change or Rey’s presence, the two intimately tied together._

_Kylo has never thought of death as something intimate before. It’s simply the finishing of life, a means to an end more often than not, and has never been heavy with layers like this had been. He can’t say he’d taken any satisfaction in the actual act, but there’s an ill-fitting sort of pleasure in sharing the experience with Rey. The press of their bodies had been as inflaming as always, despite the setting, and Kylo won’t lie to himself and say it wasn’t. Not when he can still feel the echo of her backside pushing into his front throb like a living thing. It sets his skin to crawling with guilt over pleasure over disgust._

_Phasma leaves him to his silence when she sense there’s nothing more forthcoming. She has her own ride on the way - Kylo never leaves with company when they work together, and it speaks to Phasma’s tact that she still follows that habit though Rey is sitting right there in Kylo’s passenger seat. Kylo hesitates even in her absence. He has no idea what he’s supposed to say to Rey. He knows he wasn’t the only one to feel the tension between them, but he’s likely the only one sick enough to still be feeling the effect of it._

 

_In light of that, he starts the car in silence, hardly acknowledging Rey’s presence. He’s gotten into the habit of letting her take the reigns when they’re alone, and he finds it hard to break now._

_“What’s wrong?” Rey says, breaking the tension, and he is grateful in a way. “You’re very quiet. Even for your standards.”_

_“I pushed you today.” It’s the first thing he can think to say, the weight of his decision to test her heavy on him. “I’m- I’m sorry for that.”_

_“It’s okay,” she says, wavering between calm and hesitant, and he wonders, a bit desperately, if it really is. “It was the fastest way to get me a real in with Phasma. It was just…” He holds his breath with her pause, waiting for her condemnation. “...a little confusing.”_

 

_When he doesn’t receive any sort of chastisement, just her accepting logic, it pulls at him. He hasn’t earned forgiveness for this. He’s remaking her into his image if he can’t distance her from it. He started thinking of death as necessity long ago, can’t remember the last time it held the significance that Rey had given it in her near-refusal to pull the trigger. She doesn’t know how easy it is, how simple the fall is from here to where he’s landed and had to fight his way back from by increments._

_“It’s not okay. I…” He cuts himself off with a frustrated exhale. “You don’t understand. I think you should know some things about me before we go any further.”_

 

_It’s time she hear all the things he’s done. There’s no way to get across how slippery the slope had been, just as he has no way to communicate how terrified he is of starting her on that path. Logically, he knows Rey is stronger than he ever was. She survived the system better than he did, made something of herself, has a purpose to guide her. But the visceral fear of it won’t be quieted so easily. Not when the sense memory of her pulling a trigger and ending a life on his order is still so close he can taste it._

_“Okay.” Kylo can feel her eyes on him, can hear the way her breathing isn’t quite even, and she’s flustered and red-cheeked when he glances in her direction. “I’m really not… I’m not angry with you.”_

 

 _He wonders what his expression had been doing to warrant her response. Or even - much worse - if she is as preoccupied with the tension and chemistry between them as he is. He can’t deny he’s gratified at the thought, but any attraction, any_ arousal _, mixed with what they’ve done together feels dirty. Anything he might do to reach out to her with anything but compassion would be disrespectful to them both, and Kylo isn’t sure he’ll be able to stop himself from snapping in anger if he speaks._

 

_She should be angry with him. It would be so much easier if she were angry with him. He could purge his own guilt against her fury, and he would be reassured by it. As it is, her forgiveness breaks him apart so that all he can think that might finish it is to release all of the poison of his past to her. If she can still forgive him after that, maybe it isn’t his place to decide if he deserves it or not._

 

_Later at home, he can hear her rummaging around, getting ready for bed, through the bathroom door. He’s been in the bathroom for too long, apprehensive for some reason at the prospect of facing her. He’s promised himself that he’ll go through with this, spill all his secrets, but Kylo’s not sure he can look her in the face to do it. He’s never thought of himself as a coward, but he can see what her expressions might be so vividly in his mind’s eye. The disappointment, pity, disgust with who he’s fashioned himself into._

 

_The sliver of space under the door goes dark, lights off. Either she’s fed up of waiting on him or she somehow knows he needs the cover of dark to do this. He supposes his avoidance hasn’t been very subtle, what with retreating to the bathroom as soon as he set foot in the apartment. He’d neglected to grab pants to sleep in beforehand, so he just shucks off his clothes and makes his way to the futon, the dim orange glow of the wall clock the only light to guide his way._

 

_There are probably more dignified ways to define his actions when he lays down, heavy silence filling the apartment, but fidgeting is what he’s doing. When he realizes it, Kylo forces himself to shove one hand under his pillow and keep the other still while he finds a place to begin._

 

_“What’s the last thing you remember? About me, before last year,” he says, thinking the beginning is a good enough place to start._

 

_There’s a near-silent puff of air from the direction of his bed before Rey says, “I remember your last day with us. How you bought me ice cream because I was crying. I remember drawing you a picture and writing a letter and I remember that I wouldn’t let you go. I think I tore your shirt.” Her voice is quiet to match the shadowy atmosphere, tripping over itself as she speaks, like the memories come back in a rush before she quiets even further on her last statement. “And then you...left.”_

 

_He was ready for it, he thought, for hearing her memory of Ben abandoning her, but he wasn’t sure she’d remember the details. That drawing is still stashed away, and Kylo has told himself so many times he ought to throw it away, some scrap of paper with badly drawn stick figures, but he can’t. That she remembers, recalls enough to know she tore the seam on his shirt when she refused to let go, doesn’t rattle him too badly, but only because he’d thought he’d be prepared._

 

_“You did - tear my shirt,” he says, instead of touching on the rest of her recollection. “You were strong for a kid, always were. I didn’t know where I was going when I left, I just wanted to be gone, out of that house and the system, and I thought I was ready.”_

 

 _And that’s his problem, isn’t it? He always thinks he’s ready until something comes along to prove him wrong. Kylo isn’t sure when he’ll start to be prepared for_ not _being prepared. Rey herself is a small microcosm of how he may do everything in his power to control the situation, but in the end he can only work with what he’s given. He wasn’t ready for meeting her as a grown woman, wasn’t ready to see how utterly undeserving of her he was - is, rather - wasn’t ready to let her go or watch her follow his commands or even for her little speech a moment ago._

 

_“I wanted to take you with me,” he blurts into the silence he’s made._

_“What?”_

_He’s not sure why she sounds so shocked. Surely she knew. They’d been family once - he’d have died for her, taking her along would have been no burden at all. Only he’d had nothing to offer her by way of a life._

_“I wanted to, but...I was sixteen, I didn’t know where I’d put you,” he explains. “All I had was a beat-up Camry. But I thought I’d still be better at taking care of you if I just had a place.”_

_“The Camry,” Rey sighs. “You used to drive me to ballet in that.” He wonders if the wistful tone is really there or if it’s his imagination._

_“Yeah. Not a great place to live though.” Staring at the black, indistinct shape of the kitchen counter, he can almost see it - a piece of crap car for a piece of crap kid, but it got him far enough. “I was stupid, but I knew I couldn’t cart around an eight year old in a car all the time. I tried to make it work, tried to find somewhere with an actual address, but it never worked out. And then, well, you weren’t there anymore. When I came back to check on you.”_

 

_“You came back?”_

_The way her voice catches, it’s like she expected him to do anything else. And again, he’d thought it was a given. He’s never been able to walk away from Rey, not really, not for good. The only reason he’d stayed away as long as he had was because no one in their right mind was going to let some punk kid track down a little girl in the foster system, and by the time he’d no longer been a punk kid, he’d been unfit to do much more than bash faces in and try to forget the morals he’d once had. They can’t have been that impressive to begin with, if Rey thinks he left her behind without so much as a backward glance._

 

_“Does it matter?” he asks, defeated. In the end, he hadn’t been any help to her, and she’d evidently spent the last, what fifteen years thinking a boy who’d thought of her as family forgot about her entirely. “You weren’t there, I was too late anyway.”_

_“Of course it matters,” she hisses under her breath, so soft he almost doesn’t catch it. “I thought you didn’t care anymore...after a year when you didn’t come back I gave up waiting. And then they moved me. I never stayed longer than a year with any family after that.”_

_So he’d had more stability than her, even. A criminal and then an addict, always a bastard of some sort, and Kylo had managed to call somewhere home for longer than Rey had. It doesn’t seem fair._

_"Of course I checked up on you, Rey,” he says, unchecked conviction in his voice. “Once or twice just to make sure you were at least okay, but I didn’t want to earn myself a restraining order or anything. I didn’t...know what to do. Even when I really came back for you, I didn’t have a plan, I just figured you’d still go with me.”_

_There are all sorts of emotions coloring her voice when she almost sighs, “Oh, Ben.” She would have gone with him. If he’d been uncertain about it before, he knows it now. Rey may have said she stopped waiting, but it’s clear to him she never did, not fully._

 

_“Well.” He has to pause, swallowing hard and getting himself back on track. It’s a near-physical ache to keep himself from crossing the space between them, taking her in his arms and proving to her that he’s never stopped being the boy standing in the front office of the home they’d shared, too late. Four and a half weeks too late, and they wouldn’t tell him where Rey had been moved. He’d spent his first night in a prison lockup for disturbing the peace when they refused to tell him._

 

_“I didn’t think I’d be able to find you by then,” he goes on, emotions in check in the face of remembered resignation. “And New York had so thoroughly kicked my ass, I decided to get as far away as I could, so I drove to California. And let me tell you, the midwest is a soul-sucking barren wasteland.” Even he can tell his sarcasm falls flat._

 

_“I hit the Bay Area about two months later, had to sell the car. I tried to work normal jobs, whatever places would hire an eighteen year old high school dropout.” He shifts, fingers brushing over the now clear skin of his upper arm where a sad excuse for barbed wire had sat for years, fading until he’d had it removed altogether. “You remember that tattoo? Got it after some manager told me I’d never get a real job. Figured if I was already too fucked up to pass as a functioning member of society, I may as well have the badass ink to prove it.”_

_He can hear the bitterness in his own voice, muttering, “It was so stupid.” He can remember the burn of rejection, of thinking he was being underestimated but knowing deep down the man had been right. Kylo was never meant for anything as pedestrian as a nine to five where no one gets shot._

_“You don’t have to tell me all that,” Rey says, her voice gently reaching him, a sweet, forgiving thing that almost doesn’t belong here in the room with him. “It’s really fine.”_

_“Somebody ought to know,” he says, soft but determined. “You ought to know, and I’d rather tell you than you getting word of mouth from the Order lackeys. I’m kind of a big deal for them. It certainly wasn’t a fun ride getting to the top though, not all the time.”_

_“I’d imagine.” He can hear her shifting on the bed, can almost envision her lying there, half wrapped in a blanket, one of her lithe legs kicking free for heat control, like she usually does, arching her back in a stifled yawn that cracks her bones alert, taking in what is only the beginning of his story. “So you got a tattoo. What happened then?”_

 

_“The artist, actually, was who got me in the with gangs around there.” It’s been years since then, but Kylo still recalls how nervous he’d been, arm still bandaged and no idea what he was doing. “I’d been on the street for a while, and this guy, I don’t even remember his name, he must’ve seen my type before. He asked me how I came by the cash for the tattoo and I told him it was none of his business. Offered to hook me up with his cousin if I was looking for a way to make money._

_“He was involved in stripping cars,” Kylo goes on, feeling a little like he’s rambling, but somewhat glad for the lack of interruption. “Selling the pieces in the next states over and across the border. I wasn’t ever much good at the actual grand theft auto, but I was a decent driver and I could keep my mouth shut, so I ran with them for a few years. Made enough to keep myself under a roof and fed, but they never really became family or anything. I was that funny-looking kid from back east, kind of a gag more than intimidating at all.”_

_“You’re not funny-looking,” Rey chimes in, petulant and defensive._

_“Thanks,” Kylo says, self-deprecating humor coloring his tone. “But I’m pretty sure you’re biased.”_

_Rey jumps on the hint of a lighter mood. He’s deliberately facing away from her in the dark, but it does nothing to keep him from practically feeling her relief._

_“I have it on good authority that you are…” Her voice catches, choking out the words a bit but not with insincerity. It’s something else, something a little like shyness. “...perfectly handsome.”_

_“Your ‘good authority’ is generous then.” He can’t stop himself from raising a skeptical brow, even though he knows she can’t see him do it. He’s accepted that he looks sort of unusual a while ago, has had to, and he knows he’s not repulsive by any standard either but Rey sounds like she isn’t miles above his league and that is just ridiculous._

 

_His expression falls to passivity in the following seconds as he goes on. “Nobody took me seriously, and it had everything to do with what I looked like. So I got greedy and prideful, and I fucked up. Stole the wrong car, and nobody in their right mind was going to help my ass out, so I ran. I ran all the way to Texas before I stopped, laid low until it blew over.”_

_“I was in Texas when I did the pageant shit.”_

_Kylo takes a second to respond to that, breath caught in his chest. “How old were you?” If he’d been there when she was...it’s a big state, but-_

_“Sweet sixteen,” comes the bitter reply._

_“I missed you.” He releases his held breath, only realizing what he’s said after he hears Rey’s own breathing catch at it. “I was on my way to Chicago before you were fifteen.”_

_“That’s where you met Hux,” Rey interrupts. She must remember from when he’d given her the summary of what happened to him on the roof of her apartment - what feels like a lifetime ago._

_“Yeah.” There’s a moment of silence that begs not to be interrupted. If Rey tries to encourage him again, he’s not sure how he’ll respond. “Yeah, I met Hux in a bar. I was twenty two, still had my fake ID saying I was twenty five. And Hux bought me a drink, said I looked like I could use one.”_

_Kylo is hardly aware of Rey’s annoyed huff, hissing ‘fucking asshole’ across the room. He’s caught in the memory of a smoky backroom and sharp, appraising eyes he hadn’t yet grown to hate._

_“He was nice to me. He put me up in a decent hotel for a week, told me he had some friends he wanted me to meet. It was the first time anybody just_ gave _me things without expecting more in return. It didn’t last long, but it was a good feeling while it did… And then I met those ‘friends’ of his. It was all businessmen, people who should’ve been looking down their noses at me.”_

 

_He trails off, lost in the memory. It’s the last time he can remember feeling innocently good about himself, confident in his welcome and his worth. It had been before he’d stained his hands quite so thoroughly, still a kid at the end of the day. It’s almost painful to recall how naive he’d been, how willing he’d been to believe some stranger liked him with no ulterior motives._

_“Ben.” His name comes out of her mouth like it’s been sitting at the back of her throat, staggering through her lips finally when she can bear the silence no longer. “You can stop, it’s okay.”_

_“Do you want me to stop?” Not for the first time, he wonders who this is benefitting. Kylo is certain he owes her something, but the lines have become tangled. He’s not sure anymore if this is the repayment of a debt, his own form of penance, a belated warning for her, or because he’s never told anyone and it’s like lancing a wound. He’s not sure he_ could _tell anyone but Rey, not with such candor, at least. “I was still...Ben at that point. You don’t know who I am now, what I did.”_

 _“I want what you want.” And just like that, it surges through him - how much he wants her, wants this to be real, wants not to be twenty feet and miles away from her. He breathes through the crashing wave of desire, picturing how easy it would be. He could cross the space in only a few steps, slide under the blankets and bury himself in her. He can hear the sorrow and struggle in her voice, knows she’d be pliant if only out of a misplaced need to give comfort. He could tangle his hands in her hair, lose himself to the softness of her skin and the warmth of her whole being, and it wouldn’t matter who he is. He could just_ be _with her, unapologetic and broken and sure all at once._

 

_“And I know you,” she goes on, hopefully oblivious to his thoughts. “I might not know everything you’ve done, but I know who you are, even if you try to convince yourself otherwise.”_

_“I’m not...trying to convince-” He falters in the face of her confidence, wanting badly to steal it for himself and knowing he can’t pull it out of her and into himself, no matter how he tries. It’s frustrating, grates on his nerves, and when he goes on, it’s hurried. “I ran drugs in Chicago, I beat a stranger nearly to death for taking a shot at Hux, someone I’d rather push off a cliff myself at this point. I lost…” Everything, he doesn’t say. “-track. Of who I thought I wanted to be, who I should have been. And then this was easier. I don’t know how to take the hard road anymore, Rey, I’ve been doing things this way for too long.”_

_“I..I’m not saying you’re a saint. I’m not even saying you’re a_ good man _.” There’s a beat of silence between them, and Kylo isn’t going to break it just to tell her she’s right about that. “But you were always, always good to me. Even when you left. Even when you drive me fucking crazy,” she says pointedly. “You were enough. It’s unbelievable how enough you were. You were my whole family.”_

 

 _Kylo has been retreating with every pause in her speech, curling in on himself until he’s pressed right up against his sheets and pillows like he can will himself to disappear into them. She doesn’t say he was her whole world once, but he can feel it like it’s written across the space between them. He’d been too young to see it, and then too blinded by his own downward spiral but he’s taken everything from her, and the worst of it is he wants_ more _. He wants the chance to hold her up again, knowing he shouldn’t be trusted with it. He’s broken her heart more than once, and here he lies, in the dark of his apartment wishing for the chance to hold it again, the desire as strong as his baser instincts begging to reach out and touch her. So what does that say about him?_

_“And I took that away from you,” he says, a reminder to himself and her. “How can you even stand to look at me?”_

_“Must be that funny face.” Rey’s tenderness isn’t unexpected so much as it pulls at him in the ways he’s become familiar with, the emotions it stirs up that he’s ill-equipped to deal with at best. From anyone else, it would be thinly veiled mocking, but she somehow colors it with affection and pure-hearted humor, and Kylo thinks instinctively, more a feeling at the base of his spine than a coherent thought, that he’s meant to respond in kind - let her know he feels it too, though he can’t define what_ it _is for the life of him._

  _He’s fairly hanging on to the futon for dear life. It’s a near-physical pain to keep himself where he is, feet from where he wants to be but so unable to trust himself with her. She doesn’t_ know _, but she still hangs onto that faith and trust and brightness that defines her, and it is so very tempting to try to let her bring him there. That bright-lit place where he could be someone she cares for instead of play acting like he belonged next to her. He wonders if the details of his past would come out softer, somehow less poisonous if they were murmured against her skin._

 

_“Ben?” He hasn’t said anything in long moments, and he nearly chokes on it when he speaks again._

_“I found you because my father died. It was...I went to his grave, and I saw my mom, and all I wanted was you,” he says only because it’s true. “They were my blood, but you were- More. You were my whole family, too.”_

_“And before? What happened between Chicago and finding me?” He can almost feel the door she shuts gently on the matter of his family, though he can’t place why she would shy away from it with everything else coming to light. Regardless, it kills the sentiment crawling up his throat, the reminder of the part of the story Rey doesn’t know beyond statistics on printouts in a police station._

_"Florida happened,” he says, flat and dark. Miami happened. Hux - fucking -_ happened _.”_

_“Tell me,” Rey says. “Tell me, I wanna know.” He can hear the sheets twist around her, an anxious squirm to go with the faint hint of desperation in her voice._

_“I got called out from Chicago,” he says, obeying promptly and businesslike. “They had me set someone up to take over for me, so I knew it was more than just somebody needing some roughing up. I had my first meeting with Snoke. He told me they could use someone with my talents in the Miami operation. He was...a presence, and someone you don’t want to disappoint, and he told me I was doing well, he was pleased with me. I didn’t want to leave, but it sounded nice, to be needed.”_

 

_Kylo takes a breath. There’s things he hasn’t told her between the two pieces, the breakdown of his friendship with Hux, the intoxicating pride at knowing he was being called in because of what he’d made of himself, by himself. Even the remembered force of his sense of self-importance is heady, tempered with shame as it is. He almost hates that more than he hates what he’s done._

_“Hux had screwed up his own business in Florida. He doesn’t have any creativity when it comes to people, they’re just chess pieces to him. So he’d gotten too fond of punishment and alienated his partners. A whole slew of girls had disappeared, and their pimps weren’t any help. No one was giving anyone else up for the sake of a beating at that point, Hux had screwed that up, and we couldn’t exactly start killing off what was left of the business left and right. So I came in.”_

_“Specifically, I came in as Kylo Ren,” he says, drawing the line for her where Ben had died. “Snoke’s personal dog on that particular chase. I found all of them. Hux has never had to run in his life, he’s never lived out of a car, but I had. I knew where to look, and I dragged every single one of them back, kicking and screaming or in a body bag if I had to, and I turned them over.”_

_“I was a smug bastard,” and that’s a bitter truth, knowing he’d been a pitiless man too caught up in his own satisfaction to give a shit about anyone else. “I knew I was cleaning up Hux’s mess, and I’d made myself more important than him. He had to listen to_ me _, some punk kid who’d done his dirty work for years. I didn’t get heavy into using until then either. It’d always been connected with business, but by then I wasn’t distributing and that atmosphere...something about it made it okay, made it better if I was high half the time. If I was out of my mind, it was nothing to haul in a van full of people pleading to get away.”_

_He hasn’t let go of his grip on the futon, not really, and Kylo watches the dark shape of his own hand clenching convulsively around the padding, angry, nervous energy released while the rest of him is lost to what he’s trying to make a clinical retelling of events. He’s failing, and he knows it, injecting too much of his own unresolved issues into the story._

_“And the bitch of it was when I stopped turning them over to Hux. Snoke let me run my own show when some of the girls were willing to stay that had run before. I wasn’t- I had no interest in doing anything with them myself,” and he isn’t sure why it seems so vital that Rey knows that, maybe an attempt to distance himself from Hux, maybe because it had been the one hard and fast rule he’d imposed on himself and never broken. “And I was as likely to attack a john they had issues with as keep them around. I was so angry.”_

_“I had everything I thought I wanted.” His hand almost hurts from the grip he was around the damn mattress, every muscle tense like he’s preparing for a fight even now, though he’d never gone into a fight with his head spinning this much. “I had money, power, respect, and I was still_ angry _.”_

 

_The sound Rey makes is barely human, an anguished thing that makes him look away from his fist, taking in the sound of his own harsh breathing and feeling his eyes burn. How long has it been since he blinked? He makes up for it, blinking rapidly and coming to the crushing knowledge that he’s hurt her - he didn’t want to hurt her. His eyes should be back to normal, but there’s wetness at the corners, slipping down his face so it collects uncomfortably between his temple and ear where he’s laying on his side. Kylo has seen and done things much worse than reliving his own hellish choices, there’s no reason for tears, that can’t be it._

_“I got out because I couldn’t handle it,” he goes on, voice low, and he_ sniffles _, of all things, and hopes Rey can’t hear it. “I was too close, I knew the girls and I couldn’t do it without losing my mind. I all but begged Snoke for other assignments and he gave them to me. And you have the statistics for what I’ve done and who I’ve killed all down the east coast.”_

 _“So many people, Rey,” he says on a whisper, almost staggered by the number when he tries to quantify it in his own mind. “So many lives I ended, I stopped keeping count. I’m like...death. Walking and talking and destroying_ everything _I touch.”_

 

_She’s the one thing that’s managed to survive in his wake, and while she is an unending certainty to him, it’s only a matter of time before he destroys her too. He’s bound to be the end of her eventually, and that’s something he can’t abide, so he’ll give her everything he can before it’s over for him. His life is already bruised and battered enough it must be only a twist of fate he’s survived this long. He can’t think of a better way to go out with a bang than with Rey._

 

_***_

 

Rey is convinced that she is losing her mind when she hears him cry.

 

 _God fucking dammit_ , this is the worst thing in the world and she can’t do anything to console him. The physical distance between them feels endless but the emotional gap is worse. She can tell by the tone of his voice and because she knows him like the back of her hand that he is deeply humiliated right now. Ben hates being weak, not being in control. He hates showing any deeper feelings in any _pedestrian_ situation and now he is crying in the most private, vulnerable way and she aches, yearns, physically struggles against the arms and legs that want to reach out for him because he won’t have it of her.

 

And really she shouldn’t be so willing to give it. He is telling her in his own words that he is a monster, that he killed many, many times without second thoughts or remorse. But here she is, writhing to touch him, dying to hold him.

 

“So that’s it. That’s the story,” his voice is flat, ashamed of his state of disarray and it feels rather anticlimactic in this moment. “Now you know.”

“What are you doing in New York?” She means to steer his focus somewhere else before he can work himself into some sort of embarrassment-induced freeze-up, coming up short on other ways to help when touching and consoling otherwise is out of the question. “You said you came to find me, but why did you stay?”

“The easy answer is it would have been more work to leave,” he says this so quickly it gives her a good idea that he is grabbing onto the change of topic desperately. “Snoke has plenty of work for me here, and I have no desire to head south ever again. It’s only my misfortune that the Order took interest in expanding here, bringing Hux with them.”

“...and his ambitious plans,” Rey says and remains quiet for a while. The apartment is eerily still, the only thing that makes any sound is their breathing but the silence could as well boom over it.

 

She isn’t ready to call this a night yet, though and because they’re being so honest and it’s another one of those questions he’d promised to answer as they came, she decides to ask it, just that one more thing.

“Would you’ve come back...to me, after our...time together, I mean. Even if the docks hadn’t happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says after a second. “I’m not sure I could have stayed away from you much longer. I didn’t know you were there running point on the investigation, so it was a bit of a surprise seeing you there. But aside from thinking you’d have to kill me, I was happy to see you. I’d have been okay going out like that.” He says and there is some off-putting comedy in this tragedy of theirs. He adds in an afterthought, pensive and quiet: “I think I’d have found you eventually. You’re like gravity, Rey, I can’t help it sometimes.”

 

Every once in awhile, he says things that cut her to the bone and she isn’t sure if he’s aware of it at all. And it’s equally what he says and how he said it, sincerely, bare, raw, like he won’t even bother for a second to hide from her. It’s a sharp pain in her chest and a dull pounding in her core, a delicate mix of love and lust and she tries her hardest to keep it all down, breathing deep and swallowing hard.

“You managed a year,” she says, her voice dry and layered.

“You don’t seem to understand what I did between then and now.”  He sounds mildly exasperated. “Have you seen me doing lines off the table? It wasn’t easy digging myself out of that hole.”

“I didn’t…” Rey mumbles quickly and sheepishly because it’s the truth. “I didn’t know how hard you were using.”

“Let’s just say I was classified as dependent,” Ben says, weighing his words and there is no small amount of shame in them. “There’s a reason you caught me out more than once while I was here. I’ve been...clumsy. It’s only recently it’s started to fade.”

She ponders this, because he seems good now, healthy, strong and willful, she can’t really imagine him any other way. But it is a point he could make, him nearly getting caught those couple of times. Still, on the docks he’d seemed fine, in control and aware. He was better then.

“Did you,” she starts, thinking she might be prying but continues anyway. “- did you go to a clinic?”

“No. It didn’t feel right, I don’t want-,” he starts, slightly erratic and she hears him shift and shuffle on his sheets. “No, I didn’t. I sweat it out here, kept the place when I managed to pull myself back up again.”

“You detoxed in _here_?” Rey’s voice comes out sharp and too loud for the hour and their otherwise lowered tones. “All by yourself?”

That was an absolutely ludicrous thing to do, a _stupid_ thing and she is switched into anger at his old self, at the Ben she’d loved back then and who turned around to put himself through a self-asserted rehab alone.

“Yeah. If I could get myself in the trouble, I should be able to get myself out,” he says cuttingly and she gets that this is a point of pride for him, that he wasn’t about to let anyone else see him while he was really down, and he’s the kind of person to want to make it on his own, even if he’d killed himself doing it. That doesn’t mean she likes it.

 

“You stubborn asshole, you could’ve died,” she says incredulously and then a horrible thought strikes her. “Knowing you, you probably went cold turkey.”

“So you _do_ know me,” he says sarcastically and she resists the crushing urge to throw a pillow at his head.

“Oh, fuck off,” Rey huffs, seeping with irritation. She is angry with him because he was reckless and because he could’ve died and she also feels horrible for him, imagining all the horrors of such an abrupt detox with no one there to help him.

But then again, imagining him by himself, holed up in this studio, going through what must truly have been hell, in pain and lonely, makes her soften, makes her worry, her chest constricting painfully in a way that might never fully recover from.

“How? How did you get through that?”

“A lot of baths,” he says instantly and then pauses. “I bought out nearly a whole store stocking up food and shit, locked the door and put a few planks over it. It wasn’t like I couldn’t get out, but it made me stop, any time I thought about just going out and getting something. I spent probably what adds up to days in the bathtub, just floating. It was better after the first couple of days, I could at least think straight. Felt like shit, but I could think about what I was doing without just feeling like I was about to bust out of my skin. It’s...less linear after that. It comes and goes, better and worse days.”

 

As he talked, Rey has been dying a slow agonizing death and wants something good _now_ , needs it like air because as it is, she can not breathe.

“It’s better these days, right?” she asks and her head screams along: _Please, please tell me it is_.

“Yeah. I’m…” She can hear him think, count in his head. “Eleven months, three weeks, now. The last time I had to lock myself in the bathroom was months ago.” Rey bites her lip to keep from whimpering and he goes on as if it costs him dearly to admit it. “It’s better, too. Not being alone.”

“ _Jesus Christ_.” He’s killing her slowly with this emotional twister he’s strapped her to and she tries very, very hard not to cry while her breathing goes on a little rollercoaster ride that is fun for absolutely no one.

“Hey, it’s over. It’s done,” he soothes when he catches her rasp and struggle against her covers, twisting her fists into the fabric to keep from going over to him.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says. She’s truly, deeply sorry for everything, for what has happened to the boy who left her, for what his life had turned him into, for him being sad and lonely and thinking himself so beyond deserving simple human affection, she hates all of it, with a passion that hurts.

“It’s not your fault.” He shifts around and can seem to get comfortable about as little as her but he is ready to put it and them to bed by now. “Thank you. For listening. I know it’s not a fun story.”

“I’m glad you told me,” she says and it’s true despite the pain. “I told you I’m good at this stuff. No help at all in your case. But...trying.”

“It’s enough,” he says and she ponders if it’s a deliberate echo to her earlier affirmation of him before. If anything it feels like a closing statement. And really, what more is there to say?

 

He is crushed and raw, she knows without having to look at him, or even hear him. It’s a feeling he emits, an energy. This is the penance he sought for making her kill today. To Rey, that already feels worlds away. She can’t deal with it, not yet anyway and so far her compartmentalizing helps. She has pushed that kill so far back into her mind, it starts to feel like someone else had pulled the trigger. If anything she doesn’t feel truly bad enough about it that she would feel satisfaction from Ben dismantling his past and himself along with it to repent. The execution made her feel hollow, but at the end, she could’ve said no.

She could’ve made it believable and he would’ve covered for her eventually. But she saw the opening as well as he did and it was a good strategic move. If the roles were reversed, she would’ve had the same idea. Yes, she might’ve been unprepared but then again, who ever is? And this is _undercover_. There are some sacrifices to be made. It just seems like Ben, in telling her everything, has pulled a little too much pain back to the surface to make some of his own in turn. Too much to be worth it.

Silence settles in again, heavy and loaded but the longer it lasts, the less sharp it is. First, Rey thinks she can sleep, god knows she is exhausted and drained enough to go into a coma for days. Still, after enough time with neither of them drifting away has passed to be wholly uncomfortable and abundantly clear that neither of them is going to sleep any time soon, she just says something to say something because she is Rey and this is what Rey does.

 

“Well, if I’m ever gonna fall asleep again it’ll be in this bed,” she mumbles, going for a conversational tone but she can hear the strain herself. “This is the best bed I ever slept in.”

Ben lets out a breath that might be a laugh or a sigh. “Best I’ve ever slept in too, that’s why I always buy it.”

“What?” Rey is immediately bemused for some reason, maybe because of his light response. It’s a nice change to the gloom that weighs on her like a ton of bricks.

“Oh, that’s my bed. That model, the mattress, I always buy that one when I get a place,” he says casually, not comprehending obviously what a big deal this revelation is, or perhaps too exhausted from before to give it much thought. “It’s my nice thing. Now that I have my own bed, I’m getting the one I want, so it’s always that same one, wherever I go.”

“Uh.” It hits her hard, she knows that feeling, knows how it is to never really belong anywhere, to sleep in strange beds bought by strange folks for other people. There was something so wonderful about buying her own bed after college and Quantico dorm rooms; her very own bed, just for her, where no one else had ever slept in, all her own.

And here she is, hoarding his _one_ nice thing, his one good place, all to herself.

 

“I can’t do this,” she mutters.

“Do what?” Ben is utterly clueless and even sounds a little alarmed.

“I can’t sleep in your bed and have you camp out on that thing.” She is dead set, she will not be the person to withhold and occupy his safe place, especially after what he’s told her tonight. “We’ll switch, you’re way too big for the futon anyway. And I don’t want to take away your thing.”

“You’re my guest,” he says, a bit indignant and she can practically hear how his face scrunches. “The bed’s yours, I’ll be fine.”

“No,” she sits up and sees only schemes of faint orange, him splayed out under black sheets, just a bulky shadow. “It’s not right. This is _your_ bed, you said so yourself.”

Ben doesn’t realize she’s looking at him and waves his hand around dismissively.

“Yeah, and I’m giving it to you. You’re sleeping in the bed, Rey, alright?”

 

Rey has about enough at this point and shuffles off the king-size to pad over to him. Tenaciously, she takes the outstretched hand. His eyes fly open at the contact and the white of them reflects the dim, warm light her own are accustomed to by now. His brow is possibly more furrowed than ever before and he shakes his head, his adam’s apple bobbing violently as he swallows. Still, Rey is persistent and pulls at him until she huffs and puffs and he might only relent out of pity. He gets up, this huge man, unfolding upwards to his full height and for a second, drowns her in complete darkness. Without further ado, and pointedly not looking at his bare chest and the scandalously tight briefs he’s wearing, she moves him to the bed and pushes until he sits.

He looks up to her then for a change but she can’t read his face right. He could be thinking anything right now. She doesn’t dare to ask what exactly it is. It’s the middle of the night, they aren’t wearing half enough clothes and have been ghosting around a multitude of declarations this whole time, it would be unwise to push. Still, she puts her hands firmly on his shoulders before she speaks.

“There. Sleep,” she commands, squeezes, lets go and turns to retreat to the futon.

Before she can even put a step of distance between them, he grabs her by the wrist and stops her short.

“No no no,” he mumbles, dangling on playful yet still insistent. “You’re not sleeping on the damn futon. Get back here.” He tugs, not enough to force her backwards, but enough to make the point he’s serious. It propels Rey back to him and she might be hallucinating, but is the room spinning a bit?

“This isn’t smart,” she grimaces and gives a bit of resistance in his grip. He meets and counters it immediately.

 

“Look. You park your ass on that futon and I will follow you, because you’re a stubborn woman who doesn’t know what’s good for her.” The fingers around her wrist push down separately, each with its own pressure and he’s half massaging her skin in a way that is absolutely, decidedly and glaringly _unfair_. “So if you want me to sleep in this bed, you’re sleeping here too. Nothing will happen, I promise.”

“I, I don’t…” she trails off into a few heated breaths, her body on fire just from his digits on her pulse point. She shakes her head, weakly. She’ll give in before long and she knows it. He does too.

To drive it home, he takes hold of her other wrist, making her body turn to face him and pulls until she connects with his knees and the hairs on his shins tickle her shorts-clad legs. His eyes fall on where he holds her and it’s suddenly a few degrees hotter in that studio of his.

 

“If you can pretend to be with me in front of people, I can pretend not to want you in here,” he rasps, low and purring, like silk and pure sin and it’s one of those sentences that shoot straight into her panties in a way that she just can’t help. How he so unapologetically tells her he wants her, just putting it out there without urgency or pressure, just as a fact.

Reaffirming that flaring temptation of ‘I am here for the taking, you just have to reach out a tiny, little bit’. It’s not a taunt at all but it nags at her as if it was. “It’s just sleep, Rey. I’m trying to be considerate, and neither of us is going to make the other give up their spot.”

“I believe you,” she says, her hands unclenching from the fists she made and falling to his knees. What she really wants to say, or rather what she should say, is _I just don’t trust myself so close to you._ She might think it hard enough that he hears.

“So what’s the problem?” He looks back up at her and his eyes glint with comprehension. They tell her as long as she won’t admit it, he won’t act on it, but he’s _going_ to win this argument if she doesn’t say it. It’s like they’re playing tug-of-war with only their minds and neither of them is giving an inch.

Straining, Rey tries to wiggle some hold on her self-control free but she hurts and yearns and longs and stays there way too long, staring at him like she has gone completely insane. Ben takes it all, every single fingernail digging hard into his skin with only so much as a low exhale, mouth opening just ever so slightly. He doesn’t blink until he eventually has to catch his stray bottom lip again, trapping it beneath his teeth. This is as far as she can push him and it nearly makes her groan in frustration.

 

Why can’t he just make this easier and just _take her_? Why can’t he just shut off her stupid head? One pull, one kiss and all her doubts would succumb to the sheer gravity he exudes, one of those fingers running down her body and she would fling her better judgement into oblivion and forget her own name. He has to know this, why doesn’t he go for it? Why does he decide to be chivalrous this time around? It doesn’t make sense.

Rey takes a deep breath and no, she doesn’t want to let go but she _has_ to because this is getting ridiculous. Ben stares at her like he is made of electricity and she’ll faint if she doesn’t step away or bite off his face in the next three seconds. With a grunt speaking of legitimate physical exertion, she lets go and he follows the motion, dropping her wrists. “Hands above the blanket,” she declares, punishing them both.

 

Ben doesn’t look punished at all, he looks delighted but desperately trying not to show it. “Square deal.” He’s beaming. “I thought we were never going to get to sleep.”

He shuffles back now, apparently instinctively used to his own space and how and where he likes to sleep in it, then belatedly mindful of the spot she’s been occupying as he settles.

“Is that your side?” She nods her head to where he sits now, still standing beside the bed herself.

“Usually the whole thing’s my side. Now are you going to get over here or are we still standing on ceremony?”

“I want you to pick a side.” She is not so much territorial as _terrified_ , because if they leave this undefined they’ll meet in the middle and she will make that sweet, beckoning, dreaded move, fall under his proximity like a house of cards.

“There,” he declares, moving to the right. “My side. Happy?”

 

Grimly, Rey nods and climbs in on the left underneath the blanket he holds up for her and thankfully it’s one of those huge ones that can comfortably sleep two. Still, they end up a lot closer than she can handle. It’s a current, a static buzz of sexual tension, of raw sensual attraction, of _heat_ and it sizzles all but audibly. He is glowing beside her like a 1000 Watt bulb.

 _“You_ happy?” She challenges and glances over at him.

“Fucking ecstatic. I missed...my bed.” That pause was definitely deliberate, because he’s a shithead who enjoys to make her suffer even more. He is also staring at her, face all the way on the side, turned to her and she stubbornly turns hers too. Unbidden and almost uncomfortably, her heart leaps at the rediscovery of that very specific angle she hasn’t seen him from in a very long time.

It pushes Rey over into seriousness, enough to make her cut the crap and lay it out there for him.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? For _either_ of us,” she stresses the ‘either’ so he knows she is acknowledging that this is hard for her too.

“Probably not,” he says and matches her tone, his features shifting just slightly. “But we can either fight about it or settle on this. I will keep my hands to myself but I promise if you try to escape to that futon, I _will_ follow you and that thing is hardly big enough for me alone.”

“Fine,” Rey concedes and takes a deep breath.

“Besides,” and now he really sounds serious. “You probably shouldn’t sleep alone after...today.” When he continues, he is quieter because he turns his face from her, looking up. “Me neither.”

Another moment passes heavily and when he speaks again, he has his daylight voice, making damn sure it carries.

 

“Wake me if you...need to.”

  
Then he turns to his other side, leaving Rey staring at his back and having to try and sleep _now_ , with her entire lower body pounding, pulsing and aflame and this cruel double entendre to decipher.


	5. CHAPTER FIVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for +23K words of emotional roalercoaster, perfect with pain, sexual tension and kisses. No, we mean it. Get ready.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> [SONG] Broken Strings by James Morrison and Nelly Furtado

**[CHAPTER FIVE] Playing House In The Ruins Of Us**

 

_Kylo dreams that Rey climbed lithely out of the bed at first sunlight to steal her way back to the futon. In his fuzzy memory, he reacted like an automaton going right after her, picking her up around her middle and carrying her over his shoulder back to the bed under idle protestations. But when he finally wakes up, there she is wrapped up in his arms, face warm on his chest and he realizes that it was no dream at all. He’d put her back in bed and then pulled her onto him, drowsily and still a generous three fourths asleep, trapped her beneath his long limbs and fallen asleep again to her bemused resignation as she settled against his frame. He hasn’t gotten a better night’s sleep in a year._

 

_In the aftermath of last night, he is entirely unwilling to face wakefulness, and enjoys the calm and contented feeling of waking up innocently in bed with her. Rested and comfortable, the harsh truths and remembered horrors feel distant. It was the right thing to do but the echoes of pain that demanded to be felt, in a way that nearly overwhelmed him, still ghost in the back of his head._

 

_He has no desire to dwell on it. Instead, he’d like much more to do something nice for Rey, a thank you for listening, for being there, for letting him hold her to find some shred of solace and peace. So he makes a couple of calls and even takes to the internet while she is in the shower and thinks about the day all through an amicable and quiet breakfast and is plotting out the details of his plans while he gets the laundry basket from the machine across the hall._

 

_Rey makes an attempt to keep him from handling her clothes but he shushes her._

_“I know what underwear looks like,” he says, picking one of her thongs to fold as neatly as he can manage having never handled such a thing before apart from rolling it off of bodies. “I also know what most of_ your _underwear looks like, if you’re willing to recall.”_

_Going from the flush on her cheeks, she probably is._

_“I can fold my own laundry,” she says and it sounds a little embarrassed still. He tries to puzzle out why. Her panties aren’t that glaringly humiliating in any case. Sure, the odd cartoon print or visibly faded pair comes through his fingers but it’s nothing to get all red about and turn the volume of the TV up over, pretending that she is terribly engrossed in some cooking show._

 

 _But then, after a while of this and him still fishing out panties from the basket, he gets a bit of an idea. There’s more of them than days she’s been with him and upon realizing how fast she must be going through them - and why - he makes a fist around the pair he’s currently holding and tries to breathe through the smug satisfaction and unbecoming, boyish elation._ He _did that, or was at least a factor, he knows it. And he’s hard pressed not to make a stupid, childish quip about it but refrains. No need to antagonize or embarrass her. It’s what he wanted after all. So he takes it as the quiet, gratifying personal triumph it is._

 

_Once the work is done, he gives the neat piles of his and her clothes a once over, taking in the wholly novel sight of his blacks and greys next to every colorful shade of shirt and panty Rey brought. Her yoga pants are sitting on top of her assortment, the pair she wore when they danced to her silly song, and he smiles at the memory, wondering which piece of underwear she’d soaked through then. It’s a dirty and exhilarating thought but he indulges himself, allowing his mind to fantasize just a little of what he can do to her. He could get terrifyingly comfortable with all of this._

 

_Her clothes among his, her fruit loops next to his box of plain corn flakes, her tiny, glowing body in his bed. And that tension between them that ebbs and flows but never really dissipates. It feels he’s lived with the promise and strain of it forever, even if it’s been just a little over a week. Of course he doesn’t count the year before, or that latter portion of which that he’d been lucid enough to recognize the ache in his heart and body he’d been very reluctant to name. He’d wanted her the whole time but that very specific desire to hold her always had lain dormant, for necessity and self-preservation. Now, things have changed however. She is back in his life, willingly and fitting in her way. And if her used underwear is any indication, she wants him just as much as he wants her; physically at the very least._

 

 _He should be a little more hesitant to bank on that but he isn’t a very good man and so he is willing to take this as far as she’ll let it go. He’s_ more _than willing to let her sit with that want for a bit longer. He’s a bit older, more in charge of his own body and mind when he puts effort to it, so he_ can _. Even past his very slim patience, he’s content to let the tension ratchet up until she breaks, riding the line between being seductive to appeal to the baser needs he knows they both have, and being sweet because well, who doesn’t like someone who cares about them?_

 

_Beneath all that, beneath what a cynical man could call a ploy to get her to act on her desires, there’s another reason he does what he does but it seems like a flower growing from concrete, too delicate to dissect and so he only thinks about it shallowly, even to himself._

 

 _The truth of the matter is, he likes being sweet and affectionate with her, being_ good _to her, aside from any agenda, she just makes him happy and he likes being around her light. He likes the way she laughs at his jokes, likes how it feels sitting next to her on the couch like they’re just random, normal people, likes to see her eyes disappear under that adorable squint when she grins, likes it so much he could live perfectly happy never seeing anything else in his life. He likes how animated she gets when she’s excited about something, likes how enthusiastically she sings along to the radio in and out of the shower, he even likes the faint smell of cold cigarette smoke on her clothes and breath when she comes back from the balcony. And he should hate that, really, who on earth likes that smell? It would all be very alarming if he wasn’t so utterly okay with her all up in his life as he is. She’s everywhere and it makes it all better. His life will never be good. But with her...it’s more than simply bearable._

 

_“Do you want to get out of the house today?” he asks her after he’s made a greek salad that she practically inhales._

_She tilts her head, almost a little wary at what must be an outlandish sounding suggestion from his mouth but then smiles and nods. “I’d love to.”_

 

_And so he calls one of the First Order’s very own town cars and, once she is settled in the back seat, hands the driver a piece of paper with additional instructions to follow while Kylo Ren takes the new girl to Central Park. It may be silly and almost sappy but they are in New York after all and he hasn’t had a chance to do any of the tourist things in all the time he’s lived there. He has a feeling Rey doesn’t indulge in it often either._

 

 _“I haven’t managed to get out here in ages,” she says, once they’ve strolled down the entire mall, passed by the Bethesda fountain through a swarm of tourists and took a stupid_ selfie _on the Bow Bridge. As per Rey’s suggestion, not his. But even so, when she’d flashed him the screen he could’ve looked at it a bit longer. At her face split in a grin and him actually half managing an awkward smile. They look nice together and he doesn’t just think that because he wanted to kiss her the entire day so far. Something about her tan skin and light wavy hair looks fitting next to his oblong, disproportionate features. It evens out what he could never change about his face; next to her he looks desirable, like he belongs, like a real, everyday person instead of what people had made fun off before he’d gotten too scary to mock._

 

_Still, as their stroll goes on, he’s a fidgety, awkward mess, partially because he hasn’t been outside during the day in half of forever, all those people making him nervous, and partially because he is not good at date-type situations, has never been, not even as a teenager when he’d last seriously dated people. “Yeah, I...don’t think I can remember the last time I was here either.”_

_“Or outside by the looks of it,” she notes with a good-humored smirk. “You’re positively pasty, which is remarkable because you tan like_ that _.” She snaps her fingers, and the commonness of the gesture feels as strange as this whole outing so far in its normalcy._

 

_“I go outside,” he retorts, a little more defensive than intended. “Just. Not much during the day.”_

_“And moonlight won’t do the job is all I’m saying,” she quips lightly._

_“Would you prefer me tanner?” He’s awkwardly dangling on flirty but can’t be sure if she picked it up. In any case, her face goes through a little parade of emotions he can’t discern and then she shrugs eventually. “I just...remembered that you get all olive in the sun.”_

 

_It’s a nice golden autumn day, warm and sunny enough that he carries his wool coat over his arm and she wears a blouse beneath her leather jacket, but he knows as well as she does that he’ll come back at least a shade darker from it even if it’s not a harsh mid-summer sun in the sky above them._

_“Well, pale me is more likely to avoid melanomas and the authorities, so there,” he says, purposely immature about this, in a lighthearted way, as if he could as well stick his tongue out to her next._

 

_“Yeah, what about that? Aren’t you scared some beat cop will make you?” she asks him breezily but there is some real, underlying concern in her voice._

_“See, I’m not, for two reasons,” he answers even if he’s a little worried in truth - the potential rewards still outweigh the risk, and it’s probably more paranoia than actual danger of exporsure anyway. “One, I am never around during the day, really, at all, so no one should even be looking. And two, I’m fairly certain cops don’t scan any guy innocently walking through the park with a pretty girl for their faces on the most wanted flyer. They’ll be too busy making eyes at you.”_

 

_Rey glances over at him, like he just posed her some riddle she is trying to figure out._

_“What? Am I wrong?” he asks, ready to pull the plug if she’s that antsy about it. “You think we should go back and hide out in the apartment?”_

_“No, not where my head was at,” she says mystifyingly but then offers what she thinks is an explanation. “You’re different outside.”_

_“I’m… ” He takes a deep breath before sort of hunching in on himself, opting for the truth because what use is it to make stuff up for her. “Awkward, outside. This is a little weird for me.”_

_“For me too,” she exhales like this is somehow reassuring and then carries on easily, conversationally, calling out exactly what is going on because she’s Rey and this is what she does. “Why, though? Like, we’ve spent the last week basically in a shoe box together. What is this?”_

 

 _“I haven’t actually tried to have_ fun _in a while,” he tries to puzzle out haltingly, not entirely sure either. “I’m kind of worried I’ll mess it up for you, honestly. You’re much better at it.”_

_“Don’t be silly.” She seems displeased with that sorry picture of his life this paints but she refuses to let him brood over it. “What say you, we get a hot dog and take it from there?”_

_“I’m pretty sure I can handle a hot dog,” he mutters and pauses like he’s thinking about it. “Like, eighty-five percent sure. It_ is _New York.” She just chuckles in response and pulls him over to the nearest cart by his sweater sleeve._

 

_They both get the works, Rey capitalizing happily on the “with everything”-option and starts stuffing her face with it as soon as she’s insisted she pay for both._

_“This is so bad, it’s perfect,” she mumbles through the food in her mouth, like a child who’s gone hungry all its life. “I’m pretty sure it’s all pure carbs. I love it.”_

_On his end, Kylo is trying not to drop his own before he can actually get a bite in. “Please, you’re tiny, and you deserve to eat the damn hot dog. You like food, embrace it.”_

 

_“Still gotta keep in shape,” she says as she finishes the hot dog with an elated smile in what must be some new record, then yawns and there is still half chewed hot dog in her mouth, which is both disgusting and adorable. “Sorry, I just can’t seem to wake up.” And she stretches after she’s tossed the napkin away. Then she turns to judgingly run her eyes across his barely gnawed at hot dog. “Now, eat your food, bigfoot.”_

 

_“So many opportunities for so many bad jokes,” he says under his breath but complies with her order. “You’re like a walking innuendo.”_

_“Yeah, well,” she says like that is that and he isn’t sure if she knows so many of the throwaway things she says manage to work him up in a matter of moments or if it may even be deliberate. Which would be cruel but not beyond her. Sometimes she seems like a cat to him, toying with her prey before she digs her claws in and he’s a mortifyingly blissful victim._

 

_“So what do you do to keep this whole thing up?” he asks gesturing vaguely over her frame, changing the subject, after he put on his jacket to shield him from a sudden breeze. “I mean besides chasing after bad guys? Is there, I dunno, a fed workout routine?”_

_“Plenty,” she says as they start walking. “I have this cardio regiment I neglected last week. And the hand to hand training, that’s what I usually do, also bench pressing. I can deadlift 170 pounds.”_

_“Impressive,” he says, eyeing her, wondering if she is exaggerating just slightly - but the warm glow on her cheeks suggest real pride, bordering on showing-off even. “Isn’t that more than your own weight? Guess all those carbs go to muscle then.”_

_“I could take you,” she shrugs, innocently and smug at the same time._

 

_His eyebrow cranks up entirely on its own, and holy shit, it is so hard not to make an awful, awful, lewd joke about that which his brain is not slow to supply with imagery._

_“Could you now?” He looks down at her, discarding the remnants of his fast food. “Maybe we’ll have to test that theory out.” A mock once-over of their surroundings, the concrete walkway between a wide stretch of grass surrounded by trees on the left side and an assortment of rocks by the wayside on the right, tells him they are relatively alone and his mind runs away from him with a very explicit fantasy he will not act upon. “Don’t think they’ll let us have it out on the lawn though.” His voice is a lot flatter than he’d have thought._

 

_Rey puffs at his joke, reading from his face that he is not talking about an innocent sparring duel, and nods towards the public chess tables a little behind them._

_“I know a way to test it without getting arrested for public indecency,” she says, very flirty and literally almost winks at him._

_“Then by all means, lead the way,” he says and ushers her on with an over the top hand gesture._

_“I’m about to change your life,” she declares and picks one of the deserted tables, propping her elbow up in an unspoken challenge._

 

_“Big talk for someone who barely comes up to my chin,” he teases, taking up the space opposite of her and positioning himself like this is some actual competition._

_“Bring it, dark boy,” she says, grabbing his hand._

_“Dark boy…” he scoffs and she pushes._

 

 _Her look shifts into determined concentration at first but then there’s another weight to it suddenly when she starts seeing_ him _within the opponent he is right now. As he can feel his own heart flutter embarrassingly under her gaze, she must realize that she can use this to her advantage. He gasps, not from exertion, when she bites her lip hard and like a rubberband, the tension between them snaps firmly into place again, peaking to the level of the night before, when she lay in bed next to him and he’d thought she might roll into him and get it over with._

 

_The only thing that keeps him from reaching over and kissing her now at last is the actual brute force in her grip. It’s honest to god impressive how strong she is and then he works to ignore the push and pull because it’s becoming a real challenge to keep his hand up. “What do they feed you in the academy?” he asks her incredulously. “Super soldier serum?”_

_“Less talk, more action.” And the glint in her eye tells him this innuendo was for once absolutely on purpose._

_Frowning, he purses his lips together, catching his tongue between them for an instant and thus keeps his mouth shut. He stares at her intensely, feeling himself sort of hovering on the line of physical effort to match her strength with his and physical effort not to pull her against him and rip the clothes off her back._

 

_Meanwhile Rey pushes back so much, she nearly beats him but then feral male pride and his ego that won’t let him loose to someone so small, make him get the better of her and he slams her fist down onto the table, the winner. Rey may work out regularly, but Kylo is no slouch either and at the end of the day, he’s just bigger than her, can use more purchase. She pouts in her defeat but just a little._

 

_Decidedly being a smug asshole about it, he leans back and kicks his feet forward so they’re barely brushing hers under the table. “I don’t feel all that changed.” But he quickly relents. “Maybe, perhaps, my arm’s a little sore.”_

_“Race you to those rocks over there,” she says like a shot, ignoring his concession and starts away from him before he can react._

 

_“Wha- Rey!” he yells after her, following, and he catches up because he’s long-legged, but she still beats him to the boulder and then proceeds to run literal circles around him like an overexcited puppy._

_“Oh, Benny-long-legs, still not faster than the little girl,” she giggles and snorts less than gracefully as he debates telling her not to call him that, but puts aside his mild annoyance at the taunt._

_“Not when she cheats,” he deadpans and she stops her little dance around him. “Aren’t you supposed to be upstanding or something?”_

_“_ Supposed to be _,” and she looks around, like the competitive fucker she is, and beckons him to a patch of brown grass peeking through beneath yellow leaves. “Watch this.”_

 

_Quicker than he can react, she has him on the ground with a leg-hook-throw-move that lands him flat on his back with a thud and his lungs emptying at once at the harsh impact. She did not pull that punch at all._

_“Teaching moment?” he asks, temporarily winded and looks up at her blazing face, slightly unwilling to actually go against her._

_“That...or a challenge,” she shrugs. “Whatever works for you.”_

_He rolls onto his front to push himself up, kicking out at her knees on the way, it’s not finesse at all, just meant to break her balance because he will not back down if she calls him out. “Challenge it is.”_

 

_Rey has jumped from his leg attack into a somersault and is back on her feet before he finished talking and then attacks him again at top speed with a right hook he blocks crudely and then she ducks under a punch in retaliation, slips lithely behind his back and catches his arm before he can rein it in. She flings him over her shoulder like he isn’t heavy at all and just like that he is down again._

_“You know, if you kept your guard up, you wouldn’t be on your back so much,” she says, all tough love and arrogance._

_“Quit putting me there, maybe I won’t read into it,” he grumbles and she just about giggles in response._

 

_Reluctantly and rightfully untrusting, he takes the hand she offers to pull him up and as soon as he’s on his feet again, she hits him square in the collar bone. They dance a little after in no set style or pattern, her training and his brute force evenly matched until she doesn’t twist away from him fast enough, so he can manage to catch her arm behind her back. He turns inward and grabs hold of the other one to push her into the rock, front pressed flat against the stone with him pushing, immobilizing her arms behind her._

 

_He’s breathing heavily by now and instinctively sways into her, just so, before checking himself and settling into a wider stance. “Give?”_

_Struggling and squirming in his grip, Rey bucks her hips out backward and bumps against him. The friction is instant, immediate and can’t be ignored and she knows it, the little cheat. She rolls her ass onto him knowing full well what she’s doing and if she thinks she can distract him like that...she may be right._

 

 _“Huh?” she breathes, shit-eating in her mock up of an innocent little girl that has no idea what is happening. But he can play that game just as well and he thinks briefly of the state of her panties as he presses right back, their hands trapped between his chest and her spine; he wants her to feel it_ _when he speaks._

_“What? Do you need me to put you on your back?” he mutters, close to her ear and breathes purposefully down her neck, exposed to his heat because she wears her hair in that usual bun of hers._

 

 _“Like you_ could _,” she huffs and twists. She knows exactly where he is, finds just the angle to buck in and onto._ Oh. _And his concentration slips along with his grip on her and she turns them around, pinning him against the rock with her elbow to his throat and a glint in her eye, smiling wickedly._

_Quicker than she anticipated, he wraps his hand around her wrist and pulls it in, wanting to unsettle her balance, going with her forward motion instead of pushing against it and her grip falters. Still, he can’t let go or they’ll be right back where they started, so he holds her there, half splayed out across his chest, unmoving. “You underestimate me.”_

_“I would never.” She snaps forward like a whip and then actually bites his knuckles, not hard enough to hurt but enough to startle and absolutely cheating at everything._

 

_He pulls back his hand on instinct and just as instinctively latches onto her hair with his free one, dragging her head back by her bun._

_“Cheat,” he hisses hotly and she is breathing hard, neck craning and open to him, bent at an impossible angle from which she still manages to keep her eyes on him. He could delve into this neck of hers right this second. The oxygen staggers in his lungs and then her hand flies up to his chest, not a fighting move anymore as she fists his shirt with more conscious thought than incessant battle. He can feel her fingers raking through his sweater when she catches her bottom lip between her teeth, looking at his own with a lust that is more feral than human._

 

_As weighted silence descends on them, heavier by the second, he’s practically vibrating out of his skin with how badly he wants to put his mouth on her. His grip slowly lessens until he’s not so much grabbing her hair as letting it fall between his fingers, not backing up but not daring to move forward either. Her head snaps back to him and she is free now, free to move, free to act on the blaring, maddening tension. But instead she looks to the side, away from his hungry eyes._

 

_“Look at that beauty. I’m gonna climb that.”_

 

_And just like that she is off of him and he might get a little whiplash from the sudden loss of touch as she darts away from him in an act that would have to be considered torture by the Geneva Conventions. He is sincerely too floored to respond for a second._

_“What,” he says when his blood has somewhat reached back up into his brain again and his voice is flat and dry as the desert._

_“I will boulder the shit out of this rock,” she says as she whips her head around toward him without breaking her stride._

 

_“You’re saying words, but you’re not making any sense,” he says, taking some forward steps that are very uncomfortable._

_“Have you ever climbed a rock before?” She is grinning and waves him over to her like she didn’t just unsettle his whole system and he has enough sense to check his watch at her latest proposed activity. If he wants to get dinner in before the thing he planned, they don’t have time for much more of her physical exertions or attempts at murdering him by incessant, un-tended-to erection. “Do I look like someone who climbs things?”_

 

_“Okay, stay there, you might need to catch me,” she laughs and climbs, like some kind of spidermonkey, up up up. The rock isn’t all that high but she still scales it quickly and sure-footed until he has to tip his head back to look up at her._

_“If you fall and die, I will kill you,” he says, laced with real distress._

_“Up for another challenge?” She turns her head, knuckles white where she holds on to a dent in the stone, to peer down at him standing directly under her with his arms a little spread like she’s going to plummet any second._

“No, _I’ll just_ kill _you. Get down from there,” he calls out firmly._

_“Fine,” she laughs and then jumps and he thinks he has seen this in a kids’ movie some three lifetimes ago somewhere. Of course he catches her, because she wasn’t up all that high, realistically, but Jesus, his heart is beating so hard and fast, she must feel it where he keeps her close and doesn’t put her down for at least a few seconds. “Holy shit, not what I meant.”_

 

_Once she is back on her feet, she dusts off her clothes like it’s no big deal at all and looks up at him, features soft and beaming._

_“Thank you,” she says. “Not just for the catch. This is_ fun _.”_

_“Giving me heart attacks is fun for you, noted.” It’s not like this is news. It doesn’t matter if she scares him half to death throwing herself off of rocks Pocahontas-style or rubbing her ass on his dick like she has no regard for his sanity at all; she seems hell-bent on fucking him up really, really good and he’s the sucker that falls for all of it. And then when he’s well and done for like he is right now, she goes and smiles up at him with all the pure-hearted warmth and affection of the sun holding the moon, setting it alight so it can shine without her._

 

 _And he feels romantically inclined enough this very second to hold her hand, but that’s too much, isn’t it? It would be too sweet for them, for_ him _at the very least - but he can’t quite stop himself from reaching out to fix her hair where it’s fallen into her face, tucking it back behind her ears in lieu of everything else he’d like to do to her right now. She swallows hard, leaning marginally into the touch but enough so he notices._

 

_“Okay, what now?” she asks when he’s gotten his hands back to himself._

_“Maybe something less death-defying or, you know, batshit,” he mutters, in the hopes of preserving his soundness of mind and to get the rest of the evening he’s planned on the way before she actually kills him. “You up for dinner?”_

_Predictably, Rey lights up like Christmas. “Oh my god. Yes, food.”_

_“I thought you might say that,” he grins, slowly getting his faculties back enough to text the driver to pick them up._

_“Where to?” she asks once they’re walking to the pickup point._

_“I know a place.”_

 

_***_

 

The place he means is a family owned, basement hole-in-the-wall Italian place and Rey notices the name right off the bat. “Moretti’s” it says over the door and she has filed and re-filed enough mafia cases to know they’re associated with one of the middle-ranking families, specializing in all sorts of money dealings. It should be cynical that Ben would bring her here but in a strange way it’s almost adorable.

 

Inside it’s minimalistically set, burgundy curtains and cloth napkins in the same color, lots of white details and dark furniture. It’s tasteful but still Italian and Ben fits right in with his mess of pitch black hair and dark eyes, even better with the lightest of tans he picked up from the day as she knew he would.

 

A young waitress shakes her long, dark curls and half runs to Ben like she knows him and without really caring to explain the move to herself, Rey steps in close to his side, flashing her a sincere smile but standing her ground beside him none the less.

“Good evening, Gina,” he says and she grins.

 

“Good evening, Mr. Ren,” she replies perkily and starts walking to a table they apparently both already know he will take. After Ben has pulled out the chair for Rey in a thoroughly gentlemanly manner that’s almost cackle-worthy because she can’t remember him ever doing that for her, Gina smiles again, like the sun, and she might be the most beautiful woman she has seen in awhile. Rey isn’t upset about it, not really. She doesn’t feel threatened, not truly. And even if she did, maybe, _a little_ , it would be uncalled for because she and Ben aren’t anything. She keeps a watchful eye on him anyway, gauging his reactions and she thinks that he knows.

 

“Mr. Moretti will be right out, anything to drink to start?” The waitress asks dutifully and Ben thinks for a second.

“A bottle of Tommasi Amarone, please,” he says. “We’ll adjust if the lady finds something to eat that doesn’t suit it.”

Rey can’t keep her face from splitting into a grimace; Wine suiting a dish? Since when does he care about that, all foodie-like - but then again, how would she know, this is the first time as grown-ups that they share a meal outside together, she still gets to be surprised.

“No hassle,” she says, not wanting to make a fuss and also not truly caring so much either. “I will literally drink and eat anything you put before me.”

“Of course, sir, miss” Gina nods and shares a sympathetic, amused smile with Rey as she leaves. Shit, she likes her.

“Trust me, the right wine makes the food better,” Ben tells her and then teases her a little. “Just promise you’ll try to pause and enjoy it at least a little bit. The chef is actually very good.”

 

“Despite the money laundering in the back,” she notes with a grin.

“Yes, despite that.” Now he frowns and looks around like maybe she read ‘la famiglia’ on a sign somewhere but when he goes on his indignation is just for show. “Look, do you want to get us kicked out of the closest thing I have to a regular place? You can’t just _accuse_ people of money laundering.”

“Relax, I’m kidding,” she smiles sweetly, sincerely, but then stage-whispers to him, just to be an irritating little shit. “This still has mafia written all over it.” She takes the fork from beside the red napkin and waves it around while mouthing exaggeratedly: _All over it_.

“They make excellent business partners and even better pasta,” Ben shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips and as if on cue, a middle-aged, round-bellied man emerges from the back and when he’s at the table bows to kiss Ben on both cheeks.

 

“Buona sera, signore Ren,” he says warmly and sets a bottle of red wine on the table between them. “Come estai? Come va il affari? Chi e questa bella ragazza?”

“Non mi posso lamentare, amico mio,” Ben replies breezily, in effortless Italian. “È una amica da tanti anni, una amica speciale.”

“Bene. Come sempre per lei?” Mr Moretti asks and Ben nods and then the man turns to Rey “E per la signora?”

 

“What do you want to eat?” Ben asks her, back in English and she glances over the table and makes note of the distinct lack of menus on it. It makes sense, if Ben has a regular dish here, they won’t lay one out for him.

“Well, fucked if I know,” she mutters under her breath and he laughs softly at her crassness.

“What do you feel like? Chicken, pasta, veal?”

Rey considers him for a while and then hums. “You know what I like, pick something.”

 

He might make note of the less than intentional innuendo but she can’t be sure.

“She’ll have the gnocchi con funghi,” he says to Mr. Moretti but with his eyes on her, with no discernible hint of an American accent as he switches languages mid-sentence. “Grazie.”

“Prego,” the man says and inclines his head. “Scusi, signore, signora. Il vino e offerto da la casa.” And with that he is gone.

 

“A special friend, huh.” She glances over at him and his eyes widen just a bit.

“I didn’t know you spoke Italian,” he says.

“I didn’t know you did,” she retorts, then waves it away. “And I wouldn’t call it speaking what I do. I understand most of it, comes with the job. But I _am_ curious about the gnocchi now.”

“They’re  good,” he promises lightly. “You might also be the first person I know to actually finish a plate. They have pretty generous servings around here.”

“Just how I like it,” she smiles and watches him pour the wine, which she immediately drinks without pause or etiquette, only pausing to clink hers against his in a complete wine-mom way when he gives her a look. He, on the other hand, does the whole show of sniffing the wine and tasting it, like a grade-A Napa Valley wine snob and says that he needs to check if it has corked when she’s already gulped down half her glass.

 

It’s not corked, it’s pretty great actually. But it goes straight to her legs and her exhaustion creeps back up, not necessarily helped by the exertions of today, climbing a rock and mock fighting him on the side of a road in Central Park. She stifles a yawn but only barely.

 

“You going to stay awake long enough to see your food?” He’s got an eyebrow raised but his tone suggests good humor, so she repays it in kind.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I didn’t get any sleep last night,” she says and glances off, drinking more. That sounds a little like they did something else the night before, something different than lie there with softly pulsing bodies straining not to touch the other. Ben gently tips her glass down away from her, so it lands softly on the table. “I guess it’s my responsibility to keep you entertained enough to stay conscious, then.”

 

“Okay, fine. Entertain me,” she says, tilting her head and deliberates how he could. “Tell me something funny. The best you got...a time you nearly pissed yourself laughing.”

“Uh, alright,” he says, kind of taken aback by that task and thinks for a while with the muscles of his face running apart, then coming back together in contemplation. “Okay, you know Phasma. And you know Hux.”

“Yes,” Rey leans forward, intrigued because if it involves Hux who hopefully steps into a pile of dog shit, she will be highly entertained.

 

“Can you imagine them in relation, physical and personal,” he says, kind of indulging the setup of his story and there’s already a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“No love lost,” Rey guesses and he nods. “And she’s definitely taller than him.”

“Precisely,” he says and pauses for effect. “So one day, they are basically fighting, about something unimportant and stupid for no bigger reason than because they can’t stand each other and Phasma just looks down at him - which is a sore spot - and he tries to stand tall and she goes: ‘Wanna get on your tippy toes, Hux?’ - and look, okay, so, he is _fuming_. And he sounds like a kid when he goes like ‘You’re not so much fucking taller’. ‘I got you by at least two inches’.” He gets very animated and she can feel the punchline coming, just from his contagious excitement as he goes on. “So, it’s totally absurd because they’re like, in their thirties and bickering like children, but then Hux, Hux just loses it and huffs all red and literally yells at her: ‘I’m gonna show you what two inches look like’. And his face when he realised...fucking best thing I ever saw.”

 

Rey breaks and laughs, maybe too loud for the little place because the few other heads in the place turn. She snorts and covers her mouth to stifle it. “He really said that?”

Ben bobs his head, glancing at a point past her shoulder undoubtedly recalling it with wicked joy.

 

“He really did. He was red as those napkins. _Fucking prick_. I’ve never seen a grown man sulk quite that hard after.”

“Just obliterated himself,” she inhales sharply, trying to speak past the giggles. “Please tell me you bring this up relentlessly, so he never forgets.”

“Every so often,” he nods, a bit sly. “Can’t be too much or it loses its punch, but when he needs his ego kicked in the ass, I am happy to deliver the blow.”

 

Rey lets her laughter dissipate and boil down to a content, affectionate smile. What makes her even happier than knowing this tidbit of Hux making an idiot of himself is how happy Ben looked telling that story. She has missed how his face scrunches together when he laughs, how his voice catches and he grimaces when he can’t hold it in. It’s such a nice thing to see when the memory of him crying the night before still sits vibrantly in the back of her head, at all times ready to pounce and cut like a knife.

 

The echo of his tears is notably absent from their entire dinner, however. When he’s already finished his dish, she takes the challenge of shoveling the rest of her gnocchi into her mouth, even though she’s technically already stuffed but he said she could eat it all, so she does. He might laugh at her a little but she doesn’t mind. They’re very amicable. More than amicable, really. They have _fun_ , talking about everything and nothing, steering clear of the underworld, telling more funny stories and Ben seems surprised that he has some more than he originally thought. If it weren’t for those personal bits, she could believe they were two very different people, on a regular date. Just two random New Yorkers with a little history, rediscovering each other with their biggest concerns being maybe taxes, some garden variety family drama or keeping up the car.

 

Rey indulges that fantasy, knowing if they were these different people, she’d come home with him tonight and let him wrap her up in his world. And she wants to. Even knowing exactly who they are as he orders a serving of panna cotta to share, she still wants him. And it’s exhausting to fight the pull, the attraction, her repeated successful attempts of getting - quite literal - _rises_ out of him not satisfying her by a great margin. If anything, they make her even more riled up but she can’t quite stop herself either. Not if he’s _right there_. It’s as if she has these weights around her hands and feet and he’s the ground. It would be so much easier to just sink down and heed this call. But for know, she can delve into the sickly sweet dessert and keep her hands and mouth occupied by that. Even when the thing she really craves sits at the table across from her, watching as she bends over the plate.

 

Rey spoons away quickly like a vulture and he doesn’t really try to fight her over it.

“This is delicious,” she says, through her stuffed mouth, because she can’t keep the praise in and she’s thankfully a little distracted from the pull and twitch between her legs.

“It’s all that money coming through the kitchen,” he quips lamely, “makes for the expensive taste.”

“Oh my god,” she says, dazzled and dazed and ignores his sub-bar pun. “I wanna bathe in this, holy shit.”

 

“Well, that’s an...image,” he says and blinks what is almost a double-take.

“Oh, you’d like to see that, huh?” And there is still pudding in her face, he really shouldn’t be looking at her like she just said some outrageously sexy thing. It makes her throat dry and she’s _still eating this_.

 

“I strangely _do_ have the weirdest boner right now,” he says, clearly joking after a second’s deliberation but because she is exhausted, stubbornly turned on and hyper at the same time, she jumps on the sex-joke train with no regard for consequences.

 

She puts the spoon down - but only after gathering the last bit of panna cotta and devoting an unnecessarily long time keeping it in her mouth and licking it clean.

“Oh yeah?” she says and what is supposed to sound like maybe a mock-up of cheap porn dialogue comes out sincerely, embarrassingly hot and bothered. “Tell me more.”

 

***

 

_Kylo nearly chokes on his inhale because that should be a joke, it really should. And yet, Rey is managing to give him bedroom eyes while discussing a not-particularly-sexy dessert and twisting that spoon in her mouth like she’s some less inspired beer-commercial cocktease. The worst thing about this is that it works on him._

 

_“You want me to tell you about how weird it is that I still want you so bad when you’re talking about bathing in panna cotta,” he asks, disbelieving. “Which should be gross, but isn’t for some bizarre reason?”_

 

_“Let’s say I did,” Rey says, keeps on toying with her spoon and flashing him a look from under her lashes. And, really, Kylo never would have accused either of them of being particularly vanilla, but either Rey is a bit more freaky than he gave her credit for, or it’s not about the specific scenario, just that she wants him in general and isn’t picky at all about how she gets to play him. That is a halting idea. He knows, on an academic and a physical level that they have all sorts of chemistry, that Rey has been on the verge of asking him to take her to bed for a while, but he wasn’t exactly expecting her to push so hard for it right now. Over fucking panna cotta no less._

 

 _Still, they’ve had what has actually been a great day, and Kylo always wants her as a given. He’s hard pressed to keep from putting cash on the table and leaving to take her up on it immediately, but, well, he made_ plans _. He’s certainly prepared to do his damnedest to talk her out of her clothes on the fastest trip back to his apartment that has ever been, of course. But he’d really mostly floundered his way through this afternoon and the evening was what he’d prepared for._

 

_“Ben?” Apparently he’d been silent for too long if her questioning tone is anything to go by._

 

_“Less weird, more boner,” he says before he can stop himself, and wishes vaguely for time to swallow that moment like it never happened. “So let’s say I wanted to do something about it, how would that go over with you?”_

 

_Across from him, Rey straightens in her seat and, before he has a chance to wonder, her bare foot is on his shin, moving upward as she says, “How do you think?” To be honest, he has a pretty fucking good idea of how it’d go, if her behavior now is any clue. It’s almost like when she was drunk and draping herself over him, but he knows she’s at least mostly sober. He toys with the idea of stopping this tease and taking her home like he could, but decides to go for the long game in the end. Rey has been tiptoeing around it for long enough that Kylo deserves to get the best of her. He deserves her as hungry for it as he is, and he’s willing to go for the little push of making her wait a couple hours longer if she’s still willing to play coy and dance around it._

 

_“I think my chances are good,” he says. “But I did have plans for you tonight that didn’t involve more dessert.”_

 

_Rey tilts her head, apparently intrigued, as her foot travels along the inside of his thigh, further in, and he reflexively pushes his chair as far against the table as he can. She could press right against him if she really wanted to, at this angle. “What plans?” she says, not quite going any further._

 

_Kylo’s hand slides under the table, fingers tracing just a little up her leg, just to touch. She’s right there, after all. Then he retreats and goes for his pocket, pulling out two tickets to drop on the table in front of her, the name of a ballet troupe he’d googled prominent on the paper._

 

_“Though you make a compelling argument for skipping that,” he says, his hand dropping to cup her ankle. It’s a good thing, too, as Rey gasps and leans forward to grab the tickets, pushing her foot forward in her surprise. His arousal calms down a bit at the near miss, but her heel is safely in his palm instead of slamming into his dick._

 

_“The Bolshoi, holy shit,” she breathes. She turns the tickets over in her hands before looking at him. She flexes her foot in a way he’s almost sure is thoroughly deliberate, so her toes brush against the front of his pants, and while his brain can recall he’d just been in danger of getting kicked there, his cock is only aware of the shifting pressure, and his fingers close around her ankle as he moves slightly against her. She looks conflicted, and while Kylo couldn’t give less of a shit about ballet, this was meant to be a treat for her. The only thing he knows in the face of her uncertainty is that he is losing his grip on reality with every tiny continuous twitch her foot makes on him._

 

_“You have to make up your mind, woman,” he grumbles. “Or I might drag you to the fucking back room right now.”_

 

_Rey’s lower lip has gone nearly bloodless from where she’s biting into it so hard, and Kylo deliriously thinks to offer to do that for her. He’d be very happy to do anything she’d like to her mouth right now, but especially if she’d stop moving her damn foot. “Ballet,” she decides finally, after she’s dragged the arch of her foot around some more like she’s testing him._

 

_“Great,” he says, the sarcasm coming from a place of deep frustration. “It’ll be fun walking around in this state, thanks.” Like so many things, it’s not supposed to rile him up further when he presses back against her tease, but the pressure does exactly that, and Kylo’s hand may be less than careful shooting up to flag down the waitress for the bill._

 

_“It’s not an easy choice.” Rey shivers a bit, her foot twitching so it brushes against the inside of his thigh and then below to graze his balls, fucking hell. “But the ballet is tonight and you’re not going anywhere, are you?”_

 

 _“Fuck no,” he says, eyes alight at how breathless she sounds. “Not without you.” He should really stop trying to tease her back, because he keeps tripping into sincerity. Kylo doesn’t like to think of himself as being at anyone’s beck and call who hasn’t paid him well to be so, but he’d follow her anywhere just for the chance to be going_ with _her. It’s a weakening thing, to know he’d bend laws and time and space if she asked it of him._

 

_“Good,” Rey says, smiling and withdrawing her leg. He doesn’t make a sound at the loss of touch, but it’s a near thing. “Only I think the mud stains on my jeans aren’t exactly appropriate ballet audience attire.”_

 

_“Taken care of.” He’d bought a dress for her, a white thing with a long skirt and an open back, hopefully in her size. It’s currently in the back seat of a new First Order car, alongside one of his own suits. The evening driver is a newish kid, waiting on a text to come pick them up. “I’ve got a change of clothes in the car.”_

 

 _“You really_ did _plan this,” she says with mild surprise, before her face breaks out into an achingly affectionate smile. “That’s really sweet.”_

 

_“I may have actually thought it out, yeah,” he shrugs. It really isn’t a big deal, in the scheme of things. So he’d managed to use the internet and thought ahead to buy something nice for her to wear. He’d still selfishly picked a dress he’d like to see her in, and it’s not like he can’t afford the expense. There’s so little he can actually do for her, he can’t help but think this pales in comparison to all the things he’d like to provide._

 

_Thankfully, Gina brings the check, saving him from his own fumbling insecurity. He pays it without thinking, and in hindsight, the tip is probably too much. He’s a bit preoccupied though, what with trying to calm himself down and then giving up that fight in favor of gesturing Rey to walk in front of him to the door. She gets in a quick cigarette while they wait outside, and her nerves feed his tension. The way her fingers move with the action of smoking and her lips pursing every few seconds are distracting enough that Kylo considers the slight seclusion of an alleyway for a few seconds too long._

 

_He’s not sure who’s being tested more when they have to change in the backseat of the car. He hasn’t seen her properly naked since last year, and he technically doesn’t now either, but it’s so close. He can see Rey give half a thought to modesty, in the way her body moves, but she doesn’t actually cover herself up. She’d been slender before, by virtue of her natural shape, but she wasn’t lying about following an exercise regime faithfully. The muscles of her stomach tense as she bends and Kylo can trace the shape of her abdominals with his eyes even in the dim lighting._

 

_She’s looking back, and Kylo doesn’t even try to be modest. His face may be nothing special, but his body is a weapon in his line of work, and he knows he’s in good shape. Her hands fumble a bit when he strips his shirt off and stretches his shoulders back to get into the button-down, and he can’t stop the smirk on his lips._

 

 _When her bra comes off - not fitting for the backless dress - Kylo almost decides a quickie in the car might be worth it until he catches the driver peeking in the rearview mirror at them. His own pants around his knees, Kylo scowls at the kid in the reflection, and he must’ve been looking at_ him _given how quickly he trains his eyes on the road. Kylo missed Rey slipping the upper half of her dress on in that little stare-off, something he’s definitely going to hold against their driver. He catches the kid looking again when Kylo’s half-dressed and helping Rey with her dress where it attaches at the nape of her neck. The unwanted attention kills the mood for him like his own will didn’t, and he’s only mostly into it when Rey puts her hand on his sternum as she’s thanking him for the help and the clothes._

 

_Kylo manages to shake the annoyance by the time they find their seats in the first dress circle. It’s sure to be a great view, but Kylo’s legs are also too long to fit comfortably in the space and they’re dead center with people surrounding them. He still manages to steal snatches of contact, his hand on her back as they walk in and take their seats, his fingertips glancing over her knee and thigh. More than anything though, he’s content to watch her._

 

_Rey has always loved ballet, even if she was never destined to be a ballerina herself. Her eyes light up watching the dancers, and while Kylo would be bored to tears if he weren’t sitting next to her, Rey’s expressions are infinitely more interesting than people in tights twirling on a stage. He catches some of it out of his peripheral vision - just the idea that it’s a fairytale of some kind, something sappy about how it’s never too late for “true love”, but Rey is mesmerized, in awe, gasping and following everything onstage._

 

_He’s not sure if something happened to make her do it, namely because Kylo has no idea what’s going on on the stage, but Rey grabs his hand at some point and squeezes._

 

_“It’s so cheesy,” she whispers, eyes still glued to the performers. “But I love it.”_

 

_“I hoped you would,” he murmurs. He brings her hand up with his, turning it so he can brush his lips over the back of it. He hasn’t looked away from her the entire performance, but this is the one time she breaks her gaze to look at him. In the dim theater, the stage lights glint in her eyes, her mouth dropped open slightly into the most vulnerable shape. He wants to kiss her. Not for anything more, not as a lead-in, just kiss her._

 

_Frankly, he wants to kiss her all the time, he thinks as her head turns jerkily back to watch the dancers. Sweet and entranced, flirty and breathless, enraged and self-righteous, it doesn’t matter. He always wants to have the right to touch her, sometimes in the simplest ways. It hums under his skin even at the worst of times, but bright and shining at the best, and Kylo might actually be afraid of the size of what he feels for her if he thinks about it too hard._

 

_Instead, he watches her enjoying herself and lets himself be dazed by how much her happiness means to him, unwilling to break it for his own pleasure. His hand stays in hers, gently rubbing circles on her skin ever so often, until she takes it back to applaud at the curtain call._

 

***

 

The ballet was beautiful, it really was - but somewhere in the second act’s pas des deux, the dancing figures up on that stage and the soft, continuous pressure of Ben’s hand around hers have sort of put her into a sleepy haze. At the end of the performance, she finds it a bit hard walking on her tired feet in those high heels that had sat waiting on the new dress in the car.

 

“Thank you,” she says while they wait for their driver and chews on a mint, like maybe that will wake her. It doesn’t. “I didn’t think you’d remember about the ballet.”

“I remember,” he says, lightly like it’s no big deal. “It was just a question if you _still_ liked it.”   
“I do,” she says when the car pulls up to the curb. Once inside, she can’t quite resist putting her head on his shoulders to rest. Just for a while. And either there is zero traffic or she sleeps a little because the trip home takes no time at all.

 

With a very curt thank you, Ben lets the First Order errand boy take his leave after dropping them off in front of his building and puts his jacket around her frame like the gentleman he’s been all night. Rey loops her arm through his and he immediately grabs her hand with his free one. The tension has been a solid presence between them since the restaurant and while their circumstances before have kept them idle and chaste, now, they’re alone with nothing to keep them from letting it snap. She can feel his hunger through the press of his fingers and knows it’s echoed from within her.

 

She can’t keep fighting, not like this. They both know they want each other, so why keep dancing around it? This was bound to happen anyway and if she’s perfectly reasonable, it might even be better to get this out of her system, because keeping a clear head around him without doing something about that overpowering pull is basically impossible. She yawns deeply and in spite of the softly pulsing coil of desire he feeds when he lets them in. As soon as they’re in the elevator, she kicks off her heels and holds them in her hands. They’re back to their normal height difference then, Rey having to crane up her neck more to fully look at him. He smiles softly and then dips down slightly to press his mouth onto her hair.

 

He’s been doing this all night, putting little half formed kisses on her hands and head but he’s saving the real thing for later. The notion joins the sweet, looming buzz of arousal that crackles like static beneath her exhaustion. It’s a lazy, indulgent kind of want and it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever truly fade. The elevator releases them to their floor and Ben prowls ahead with a lot more energy than she could muster at this point and opens his apartment door.

 

First, Rey doesn’t know what is different but then it clicks. In place of his substitute bed now stands a fashionable, yet comfy looking couch and she would laugh a lot more heartily if she weren’t so fucking tired. She’s almost impressed with his audacity, but not quite surprised in any case. No more escaping to another bed now for her.

 

“So, did you get me out of the house just so you could get rid of the futon unseen?”

“I had additional reasons,” he says lofty.

 _It’s fine really_ , she thinks, if she can actually stay the fuck awake, today will mark the end of necessity for separate sleeping spots anyway. “I like the couch.”

 

She lets her heels fall where she stands carelessly and trudges on heavy legs over to the bed to collect her pajama shirt and shorts and does a very quick and poorly executed version of her nightly routine. Toothbrush in her mouth and fiddling her hair out of the high bun, she wonders why she bothered to change into her pajama at all. By the end of her clumsy bathroom affair Ben waits for her outside the door to get clean up as well but unlike her, he opts for just briefs and nothing else. She sees him walking over to her through half-open eyes, confidence in his step and battle-hardened muscles rolling underneath his skin. She wants to touch him but she can’t make herself get up.

 

Ben moves in on her instead and his features and the lines of his bare chest are sharp in the light of only the reading lamp clipped to the headboard left on. He ends up half on his stomach and half next to her, breathing in deeply before he starts touching her soft and slowly, just barely, just so, only his fingers skimming over hers and up her wrist.

 

“Hey,” he breathes and it feels like molasses running down her chest, exhilarating and calming at the same time.

“Hey,” she mutters and hums, looks up at him with her nerve endings comfortably glowing and goosebumps springing up all over her body. She shifts a little, tilting up her hip so he might notice the rest of her body too and smiles widely. “How are you?”

 

“Magnificent,” he says and chuckles a little, low and soft. But he doesn’t seem all that interested in talking about himself or talking in general; he’s trailing over her whole body with his eyes, his hand making a slow path up her arm and across her collarbones before he drops it to her waist, rolling up her shirt a bit and raking his nails gently down her side so the touch has no pain to it, just sensation. It fuels the weirdest mix of excitement and bone-crushing relaxation she has ever felt to an odd, blaring yet subdued crescendo.  

 

She arches into his touch, following his movements and quivers under his fingers where they ghost over her body. She can’t breathe deeply enough to get enough oxygen to her head and she tries to blink herself awake, inevitably failing. She reaches for him, for his chest, to repay him with her own touch but can’t keep her arm up. She wants to stay awake, she really does but she just feels so good, so comfortable, she doesn’t know if she might not be dreaming already. She sighs, rumbling and deeply content, her whole body singing quietly for him.

 

“Good?” he asks it in almost a breath. It’s raspy at best as he ducks his head and presses his lips against her shoulder where it tips toward her neck, his hand toying with the skin over her hipbone and making little back and forth trails in and outward and then up toward her stomach. There is so much raw energy in his sensuality, it’s as if he thumbs her into a whole different state of matter and it translates into a burst of color at the back of her eyelids. She moans breathily, momentarily overwhelmed.

 

“Mmmh mmh,” she mumbles and turns toward him, if only a little while her hand snakes from his chest to his neck, between their bodies and he follows, giving her some space to palm his jaw, and she gives as much pressure as she can manage to pull him in blindly.

 

So fast, he must be very eager, he shifts onto his side and his elbow completely, his free hand splays across the bottom of her ribcage, just underneath her breasts, and he molds into the curve of her hand, following its gravity and brushing his nose against hers for the briefest second before kissing her with something that is almost restraint, almost hesitation and his lips might be a little unsteady at first, shaking ever so faintly.

 

The kiss is soft like a whisper, and the gentlest touch she has ever felt. It sends her almost straight into a blissful coma. His lips are soft and full and they envelop hers in some cheesy, tipsy poetry. Still greatly approving, she near purrs against them and wants to grab his hair but she can’t control her limbs anymore, any hold on them fallen to the immobilizing serenity he stirs and commands. She curls into him, then twists, jerking and stretching sleepily and keeps trying to catch her breath when he breaks away from her. Her eyes won’t open anymore. Rey feels like she is drifting without him there, that her tether to the ground, to her very body is gone when he withdraws his hand.

 

“Rey,” he whispers, so softly and there’s something else in his voice she is beyond deciphering at this point. “You’re falling asleep.”

She shakes her head at that ridiculous claim and keeps her eyes closed, her words slurred like her lips don’t work anymore.

“Don’t stop,” she begs, digging her fingers into the bit of his skin she can reach blindly and arches up as far as she still can before she slips away with a last, murmured plea on her lips. “Keep... _touching_.”

 

***

 

_He said it himself, but it takes a second for it to register that Rey definitely just fell asleep on him, only managing to demand he keep touching her before drifting off. Kylo has had some less than shining moments in his life, but this one is going to hold a special place as simultaneously the most and least flattering thing that’s ever happened to him. On the one hand, it’s somewhat gratifying that Rey feels so safe with him, so at ease, that she just dropped off. On the other hand, he’s really starting to lose count of the erections she’s caused and then promptly done nothing about._

 

 _“Rey?” he tries, but all he gets for his trouble is a breathy little moan that does nothing to denote wakefulness, nor does it kill any of his desire. She_ did _give him permission, he tells himself, his hand spanning her ribcage with his fingertips under her shirt, just brushing the curve of her breasts. He could keep going. He could touch her while she’s loose-limbed and pliant, breathing her pleasure in even measures as she sleeps. He could easily slide his hands down, keep his mouth on her neck and chest and watch for the moment when her orgasm wakes her._

 

_He’s certain she’s ready for him, asleep or not. He’d find her hot and wet if he pushed his fingers into her, and she’d writhe for him, uninhibited. The temptation of it is a physical pressure at his back, and Kylo’s nearly talked himself into it, he even has a grip on the hem of her shorts, when Rey makes an unconscious snuffling noise, the precursor to her light snores. There’s something just as wrong about talking himself into this as when she’d been drunk. Kylo has been a gentleman all day and he’s not going to stop just because he kept Rey up all night with his own bullshit and then lulled her to sleep instead of seducing her properly._

 

_So he bids a terribly fond farewell to the prospect of actually having sex tonight, and starts putting Rey’s clothing back to rights. Gentleman he may be, but he isn’t made of stone, so he can’t resist stroking her flat stomach, placing a kiss below her navel as he adjusts her shorts. He puts his hands in her hair for a brief moment after tugging down her shirt and she tips her head into it. Kylo holds his breath as she does, a blind hope that her eyes will open, but all she does is nuzzle her face against his palm and roll toward him, her snoring starting up after a moment._

 

_He manages to extricate himself without waking her, not that he’s exactly trying to keep her asleep. Her sprawl is somehow graceful where her body is still curved to make a space for him beside her as she sleeps on. Rey only shuffles a bit at the motions of him tugging the blanket up to her shoulders. Her cheek tips up, leaving the stretch of skin between her shoulder and ear open and vulnerable. The exact spot he’d always had a fondness for resting his own head against when they’d shared a bed before._

 

_Looking at all the empty spaces she unconsciously leaves for him, Kylo can feel his chest contract with the same sort of emotion that had overtaken him watching her eyes light up at the ballet. He can’t be annoyed with her for falling asleep, not in the face of this. Here she is, taking up his bed and his space in the most unselfish of ways, filling in all the gaps he tries to ignore, and no matter what stumbles they might have, he’d go through it all to have moments like this._

 

_He seals it with a kiss - the promise he can’t make because he doesn’t have the words, not yet. Rey’s mouth moves against his gently, accepting his kiss in her sleep, and he retreats to the bathroom alone. He may as well take a shower, and he lets the warm water pour over him while he deals with what his anatomy can’t ignore. As much as Rey stirs him up internally, physically he wants her just as badly. It would’ve been perfect tonight, if she’d managed to stay awake, he thinks ruefully._

 

_Kylo would have gone slowly, his imagination playing out as he takes his time with himself. His head is filled with Rey’s sleepy eyes and soft mouth, the way she’d shivered and been putty in his hands just from a few touches. He doesn’t go for the immediate fantasy of burying himself in her, feeling her flutter around him and gasp. Instead, Kylo imagines himself on his knees, her legs spread over the breadth of his shoulders so he can look up the length of her body and watch her quiver her way to orgasm. He can almost feel the tremble in her thighs around his ears from where he stands, eyes closed and forehead pressed to the warming tile with his hand tugging at his cock in fits and starts._

 

_He’s seen her come like that so many times, and it’s been so long since he’s watched her fall apart from the bottom up. He’s so distracted remembering the way she shakes and arches and cries out for him that his own orgasm is a surprise, like a punch to the gut. Perhaps it’s a good thing she’d fallen asleep, he thinks with a bit of humor as he steps back into the spray and washes off the evidence of his release. He’d want to be inside her when he came, and it’d be a pity to spill into his briefs on his knees before managing that much._

 

_Rey hasn’t budged an inch when he returns, slightly damp and bone tired himself. He may not have missed as much sleep as she did last night, but it wasn’t a perfect night, and his orgasm has left him sated if not satisfied. He’ll have her soon enough though, maybe tomorrow morning even. He falls asleep to that pleasant thought and the steady sound of Rey’s even breaths beside him._

 

***

 

Rey wakes up on her back, twisted comfortably in the enormous blanket they share and sees him half uncovered but soundly asleep through bleary eyes. She wants to sleep some more, to keep the light trance of rest and dreams, keep the sense memory of his fingers on her a little longer. Her dreams have been vivid and while she can’t remember a great many details, she feels her skin softly pulsing with the remnants. She sighs and yawns contentedly but then she realizes why she woke up. His phone is rattling and vibrating away on the little chair he has on his side of the bed as a nightstand. She reaches over his body which does nothing to rouse him and finds it locked.

 

She deliberates letting it go but the phone is already in her hand and he’s still sleeping, so what’s the worst that can happen? She tries the obvious combination first, variations on his birthday, then his birth year, then tries something else and his screen bursts to life. In a different set of circumstances, she might be surprised at the combination but somehow as things are, she isn’t.

 

After she’s read the texts which are increasing in urgency, she decides his respite is over and nudges him gently by the shoulder, repeating his name with growing volume until he stirs. Ben groans and rolls into her so his forehead is pressed against her shoulder, he’s very touchy still, and all bleary, more so than she’d ever be because he is the furthest from an early bird you can get.

“G’morning,” he mumbles but that’s only an educated guess because it’s barely understandable.

“Your phone went off,” she informs him. “Phasma wants to see us _stat_. Both of us. She wrote ‘you and your girlfriend’.”

 

“Where’s…phone,” he mutters, his hair just tragic and he’s so adorable, she wants to squish his pillow-lined cheeks and kiss him. “Where is it?”

She puts him out of his drowsy misery and hands him the phone she still holds on to. He leans in to read, shifting closer and hovering there, seemingly unaware of the subtle proprietary touch of him pressed against her. She _is_ at the very least, and she lets it happen, let’s it crush into her system like the delicious fulfilment of her shortly passed dreams that it is. He is reading and can’t quite seem to get his eyes to focus because he is squinting in stern concentration but then stops for a second to look up at her like he just had an idea. “Did I tell you my passcode?”

“It’s my birthday,” she shrugs breezily. “I got it in four tries.”

 

He nods at her like he’s saying ‘yeah that makes sense’ and blushes just a little. The only word that applies in all honesty is _cute_. He’s so fucking endearing like this, she could eat him up where he lies, which is a feat for such a big man.

“Okay, we’ve got maybe forty five minutes until she gets impatient,” he mumbles after he actually read the texts and drops the phone to the side for the moment.

 

“So,” Rey says, flipping back to her back and away from him because it’s getting really hard to think straight. “Did you sleep well?” She stares hard at the ceiling, trying not to get too red thinking about where they left things the night before.

“Yeah,” he says and she can feel his eyes on her, watching her for her responses. “Took me a bit longer to get to sleep than you, but I think we’re both well-rested now.”

She doesn’t miss the implication but feels crusty and sleepy and sweaty and she doesn’t want him to touch her like that. She wants to be clean and nice-smelling when they go there again.

 

“I gotta take a shower,” she says and sits up.

Quick and seamless, he catches her hand, not stopping her, just pausing, and presses a kiss to her wrist in an echo of last night.

“Wake me when you’re done,” and he drops headfirst back into his pillow for an extra catnap, then adds, muffled by the downy feathers, “If you care about me, you’ll make coffee. I think it likes you better.”

 

She showers longer than she should, enjoying the warm patter on her skin too much to be quick about it. Once out of the tub, she realises with a start that she took the better part of twenty minutes and curses herself for wasting this precious time away. Yet, when she emerges, hair barely towel-dry and dripping, he is still sleeping. She puts the coffee maker on and blow-dries her hair, debating if she should put clothes on at all but then, with a wistful glance at his clock, decides that it’s too late now. He has another fifteen minutes to get ready and have his coffee and any lengthy interruption of this would probably not sit so well with Phasma later.

 

Thinking that she can at least do a little something sweet for him bent over his coffee, she ads his sugar, cream and a dash of vanilla she hunts down from his cabinets and carries the cup to his bed, waiting until his nose twitches with picking up the scent. “Open your eyes, bigfoot.”

Reluctantly, he rolls over, sitting up and shoves his hands through his hair, which is somehow actually effective in taming it and not at all fair. He takes the cup from her, cradling it like it’s a precious, life-giving beacon. “Thanks, kid.”

Rey crouches beside the bed, looking for a sign of him recognizing the new coffee taste and hopes he’ll be pleased.

“What’d you do to it?” He says when he does, licking his lips and trying another sip. “It’s good. Different though.”

“It’s...my secret recipe,” she says childishly hopeful, “do you like it?”

 

“Yeah, I like it,” he says and then neglects it to lean forward and kiss her lightly, just at the edge of her mouth. “Thank you.”

Instinctively, she turns her head in response, so she kisses him fully, not unlike he did her before she dozed away on him, not pushing but with a little more pressure behind it. “I’m sorry I fell asleep last night. I _really_ am.”

Ben hums against her mouth and then breaks away slightly, going cross-eyed to look at her and then trains his eyes on her lips.

 

“It’s alright,” he concedes with a definite glint in his eye. “You can make it up to me. The coffee’s a great start.”

The clock has not been still and she knows it, so she scrunches her face, hating to deny this to both of them. “You’ve got T minus thirteen minutes to get ready before Phasma gets antsy, or so you said. Assuming you take five minutes to get dressed and don’t shower, that leaves me eight minutes, starting now. I’m not sure that’s enough.” She knows definitely it isn’t enough.

 

“I mean…,” and he pretends to think about it, “I could probably cut getting dressed down to two minutes and I’m not gonna pretend you couldn’t finish me off in...” His voice trickles to nothing when she takes his free hand and brings it to her mouth, slides her lips along his index finger and then flicks her tongue around it twice before taking it in, sucking and hollowing her cheeks like she would if this wasn’t his hand. She locks her gaze on his until his eyes roll backward into his skull and he growls and curses.

 

“Fucking _tease_ ,” he breathes and opens his eyes again, glaring at her almost dangerously when she tips her head to take in his finger to the base and then lets it pop out of her mouth with an obscenely lewd sound. He swallows hard, pupils so dilated they make his eyes look almost black. “I’ll get you back,” he hisses as his hand darts up to close around the back of her head with urgency. She could live with that.

“No time,” she smiles cruelly but that’s just to vex him more, she hates it as much as he does.

 

Fighting for resolve, he lets her go, shuffles himself up off the bed and she has to stand too to make way. “We’ll take a raincheck. If Phasma comes to hunt us down, I think it might kill the mood so bad it’d never recover.”

Rey smirks, watching him rise to his full height, then pushes herself to her tiptoes and kisses him, opening her mouth just a little, just swiping her tongue over his upper lip and steps away when he parts his to let her in. _There’s no time_.

 

“Horrifically enough, I think it wouldn’t,” she almost whispers, recalling with no small amount of shame that she wanted him just like she does now even while actually killing a man.

 

The sound he makes is an odd mix of outright despair and a small child’s whine and he looks at her like he wants to eradicate the fact he’s an adult with responsibilities and gladly just put her back on the bed and indulge for a few hours. “If you’re trying to get me to get dressed and ready to do business, it’s not working so well.”

 

As innocently as she can, she tilts her head up at him, letting her hands travel up his bare chest lightly, ghosting, then smiles devilishly as her hands dart up quickly to twist his naked nipples…that should sober him up, at least.

“Mother _fucker_!” He yelps, backing up post-haste while she laughs softly at him. He nearly drops his cup and even if he’s not really mad, it probably still hurt like a bitch. “Fine, my coffee and I will go then.”

 

She watches him stalk away, adjusts her stance where he leaves her and she thinks she might burst before this day is over. If Phasma keeps them too long, she might turn into a supernova, dangling on the edge of an eruption too big for her body to contain.

“Still on for the raincheck?” she calls to him as he rummages through his dresser.

“Yes,” he says stubbornly, muffled by the shirt he drags over his head. Apparently he’s going for something halfway between classy and ‘I don’t mind getting blood on this’ because Phasma was not overly specific about what it is she wants to meet them for. “The benefits still outweigh you being a damn brat.”

 

She laughs heartily and the promise of _later_ makes leaving their little bubble bearable and carries her to the nondescript diner in Harlem Phasma chose on a puffy cloud of ever-present, warmly tingling arousal.

Once arrived, Phasma shoots them a look that says ‘I don’t want to know anything about this’ and gestures for them to follow her to a corner far in the back.

 

“I thought I was going to have to come find you,” she grumbles when they sit down across from her.

“You know better than to expect me to be in a rush when it’s still light out,” Ben shrugs utterly unfazed.

“Unfortunately for you, we’re working with people who keep normal daylight hours at this particular moment,” she counters easily. Rey has a pretty good idea that this lightly snappy back and forth is their usual tone of conversation. But she still jumps in anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she says and it might be uncalled for but she doesn’t want Ben under scrutiny because of what they did or rather didn’t do last night. “I kept him up.”

 

Phasma eyes her for a moment, face unreadable. “Someone ought to every once in awhile.” She deftly ignores Kylo starting to be insulted and Rey puts her hand soothingly on his thigh to keep him from taking the bait.

“Either way, you’re here now and we have things to discuss. At your suggestion,” she nods to Ben, “we’ve decided to take advantage of Rey’s experience and reopen lanes into the younger crowd.”

“What are we talking?” he asks, conversationally, back in business-mode. “New product or the usual?”

“It’s not the top tier class we’re gunning for, they have enough rich parents to give them access. The plan is to start with the club scene,” she replies and then turns her attention to Rey. “Do you use ecstasy?” She’s blunt about it, with no visible judgment, just wants the information and Rey likes her a little more for it.

“I do pretty much everything that gets me in a good mood,” she shrugs levelly and glances over to Ben with a hint of a jest. He slides his fingers through hers but she can’t tell if it’s because of her stupid joke or because he doesn’t like imagining her using.

 

“Excellent,” the tall woman nods. “Then you’ll be our man - or woman, as it is - on the inside. The First Order has the market cornered on the street drugs, but we’re losing out the opportunities for the party scene.”

“I may have an in,” Rey says, following her gut and an idea she thinks can turn into a win-win for her. “Do you guys know _Maz’s Castle_?”

 

Maz Kanata is a bit of a legend in New York’s club scene already, despite her young age. She has her finger on the pulse of the crowds and has built several well-running clubs out of rubble and people from all walks of life show up to the one of her establishments that suits their fancies best. Rey knows her as a mole for the FBI. Being a club owner, Maz has to contend with plenty of NYC’s finest, the scum as well as the masterminds of its criminal underbelly and eventually, she had taken a heart and started passing on information to the feds and the police. She is a great woman with a solid character and even if Rey has only seen her a couple of times, she knows she will be able to trust her with this. If she manages to make it look like the newbie has some valuable contacts, she’ll look good for the First Order and in earnest, Maz is another witness she might call upon when all is said and done. It would be close to perfect.

 

“I’ve heard of it, though it wasn’t a top spot on our list,” Phasma says.

“I know the owner has had a few places before, they tend to pull in a pretty wide range of folks,” Ben says, playing along after she tapped his wrist twice. “You think the crowd will be the kind we’re looking for?”

“It’s a bunch of hipsters really,” Rey answers. “They’ll go for weed, all of them, and most would try some molly if approached with a smile and a wink. And I know Maz. She’ll be...cooperative if we cut her some profits and don’t draw too much attention.”

 

Phasma weighs her words for a while and then apparently decides that she likes the sound of them.

 

“Good. You’ll be with me going over details and maybe we can pay that Maz a visit.” Then, she whips her head back to Ben, who’s been letting Rey run her show. “You’ve been tasked with securing our supply. There’s a group from the Netherlands that’s been a bit too arrogant about pricing in Queens.”

“You have an address for me?” he asks dryly and takes the paper Phasma hands him before she motions for the check. That was awfully quick.

“You’re _leaving_?” she asks under her breath while Phasma is distracted, suddenly nervous because she has never been without him in this before.

“I have to, Rey,” he talks fast, turning to her so his words won’t catch. “You have that burner I gave you, call me and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing.”

 

“Something wrong?” Phasma cranks an eyebrow when she turns back to find them whispering.

“No,” Ben says. “This is just the first time Rey will be operating without me. You’ll see to it she’s well taken care of, yes?” There’s a threat to it, and it’s not all that subtle.

“Of course.” Phasma seems almost insulted that he would issue a warning like that. “You’re welcome to meet up with us should your business conclude early, if that would put you at ease.”

“I’ll be on call,” he says looking at Rey after a few seconds of fighting some internal battle. “Rey should be able to handle herself. And I know you hold yourself to a level of excellence, Phasma.” He is turning this into a test for Phasma as well and the woman is a bit annoyed by it, but seems intent to pass nonetheless.

 

“I’ll be fine,” Rey nods to both of them and plays up the street-wise punk kid. “It won’t be the first time I do something illegal. I just don’t like letting him out of my sight. It’s a big world out there.”

“Don’t worry.” Phasma has her eyes on Kylo, and this is a blatant warning to him that she can see exactly where his weakness sits across the table from her. “If anything will keep him careful, it’ll be because he has something to come back to.”

Ben doesn’t appear to like that, but can’t exactly tell her she’s wrong. “I’m always careful. It’s why I’m not currently rotting away in a cell or a ditch somewhere.”

“True enough,” Phasma sighs all but motherly but takes his flippancy for the distraction it is. “Now, I believe _you_ have business with the Dutch, and us ladies ought to be heading out.”

 

Ben leaves with a curt nod and nothing more while Phasma waits pointedly until he is gone and does not move to leave after paying the bill. She studies Rey until it’s uncomfortable.

 

“You need something?” Rey asks with a cocked eyebrow, in truth scared shitless but Fuckup-Rey isn’t that smart.

“How do you know Kylo Ren?” she asks bluntly, getting right to the point. “He’s been somewhat reticent about your past together.”

Rey has to take a second to collect herself and masks it as guardedness, making a little show of offering the information less than willingly.

“When I was four my parents died in a plane crash and I got into the foster system. I was placed with the Yavin’s, down south. Ben was there. He...looked after me until he left when he was sixteen,” she says. “I didn’t see him again until recently. I needed...a boost and reached out through an old acquaintance. He was like a brother to me. Not anymore though.”

 

“Ben?” the other woman catches on the apparently unfamiliar name. “Well, you _have_ known each other a long time, haven’t you? Far be it from me to be picky about what bedfellows you end up with, though it explains his reluctance to let you go.”

“He’s always been...protective,” she shrugs and adds in an afterthought, more sincere than she planned. “It’s his real name. And he always will be Ben to me.”

After a moment of consideration, Phasma locks eyes with her, deadly serious. “I’m going to tell you something because I respect Kylo and you seem to care for him. His attachment to you is a weakness as much as it can be a strength. If you want him to keep breathing, I suggest you form it into the latter.”

 

“I have zero intention of getting him killed,” Rey says, sincerely.

“Seems we have an understanding,” she softens just slightly and she seems suddenly very, very uncomfortable to go on. “We don’t have friends in the First Order, we have colleagues, but there are some we’d take a bullet for more willingly than others.” Then she shakes her head as if she’s shooing away a persistent fly. “Tell me about this Maz you know, we’re verging on girl talk and it’s giving me hives.”

Rey chuckles at this beside herself, knowing why Ben likes this woman. “I’ve worked her bar once, in another joint,” she makes up as she goes along, knowing Maz will cover for her. “She’s a bit of a hippie and you’d think she’s a hundred years old even though she’s barely thirty. Doesn’t do any drugs if you’ll believe it but she likes money like the rest of us.”

 

The short-haired blonde takes in that information levelly. “It’s best if the management doesn’t partake.” She is wholly unbothered if her judgement on that front insults Rey, who for all she knows, is a heavy user. “We can give her place a look. Otherwise, you and I have an appointment to make.” She stands then and gestures Rey to follow. “I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with cabs while you’re with me. I can’t stand driving in the city.”

“It’s fine,” Rey says. “As shitty as the cab drivers are in this city, no one drives more like an asshole than Ben.”

“I know you have familiarity, but you really should use Kylo,” the impressively tall woman says when they’re at the curb. “If it’s not his real name, there’s a reason I’ve never heard ‘Ben’ before.”

 

Suddenly sheepish, Rey checks herself and acknowledges that Phasma probably has a point. But she doesn’t like it much and the other woman might pick up on her deeply rooted reluctance. Still, what is she to do?

“ _Kylo_ drives like an asshole, then,” she says.

“That much I believe,” Phasma quips lightly. “He does most things like an ass, though in comparison to the company we keep, Kylo could be considered a gentleman.”

Rey huffs, like Phasma is a girlfriend and they’re chatting over coffee about the men in their lives and it’s weird but doesn’t feel half as bizarre as it should. “You don’t know the last of it.”

 

And Rey finds she would like to share, would like to get some of the things she feels and wants off her chest. If maybe not to gush like a teenager, than just to have some sounding board outside of Ben’s and her bubble. Something she can tell someone so it’s more real.

“Frankly, with the nature of your relationship, I don’t want to know,” Phasma deadpans and it’s really better this way. Best not to indulge in chit-chat about the a man Rey really shouldn’t want so badly in the first place.

 

The cab takes them across the city to various clubs to meet with their money-hungry owners and when the sun starts setting, they arrive at the _Castle_ , still closed, but Rey has sent Maz an instructional text from her burner phone.

 

_Agt. Rey Kenobi here. Undercover. I used to work for you, play along. Delete this text._

 

The woman meets them at the back door of the club and leisurely bids them in. The club itself is a styled-through black and neon-triangle-donned cave-like thing with high ceilings and a second level gallery that enables everyone standing on it to look at what is going on in the pit of the room like it’s an arena. Maz hugs Rey affectionately once they’re in her office and the bright shades of orange she is decked with from head to toe glow on her smooth, dark skin.

“My dear girl,” she says warmly, “your message was a little cryptic to say the least. What can I do for you and your... _friend_.”

She looks at Phasma for a second and Rey smiles.

“I’ve got a new job,” she tells her lightly. “And we have a business proposal for you.”

 

And with this, Rey lays out the scheme, having listened to Phasma give the exact same speech the entire day and Maz, just like she is supposed to, inquires after the money and safeguards should things go south but agrees to host them by the end of it as long as they cut her a bit of the profits and disappear at the first sign of the authorities sniffing around.

 

Phasma seems pleased and trudges ahead after Maz led them back to the door they entered. But Maz holds Rey back by the arm for a second after Phasma has stepped back outside into what is now twilight.

“What did you get yourself into, starlight child?” Maz asks, real concern flashing on her delicate features.

“It’s fine,” Rey says and she wishes she could stay with her for a while and just feel like a normal person for a moment longer. “I’m onto something huge. It’s important.”

“I’m lighting a candle for you,” the other woman says and takes her hand, squeezing lightly.

“Thank you, Maz,” Rey smiles, “for everything.”

 

“So,” Rey says, collecting herself when she joins Phasma in the alley. “Think this can work?”

“It has potential,” Phasma answers after a moment. “Maz seems to line up with what we’re looking for in an owner. I’m not sure the higher ups will approve of doubling up on new blood, but if the crowd is as open as you say, it’ll do.”

“Good,” Rey nods, hoping fervently that this will pan out the way she wants it to.

“One more matter to consider is _you_ ,” the other says. “How good is your ‘smile and a wink’ going to be?”

“I can handle myself.” Rey frowns slightly, unsure what Phasma wants from her. “I can flirt.”

The blonde doesn’t seem to fully trust that self-assessment. “Let’s hope so. I certainly can’t offer you any tips, so you’re on your own there. Keep in mind you’re peddling the product, not yourself, but it can be a fine line.”

 

“Yeah, I’ve been offered being the product myself,” Rey scoffs. “I’ll stay clear of that.”

“I assume your meeting with Hux went well then,” Phasma sneers and as Rey expected, there really is absolutely no love lost there. “We’ll move forward with the assumption this will be our base of ops for your first go round. I’ll be in touch with Kylo in case we have to change plans.”

“Do you think we can take the Thursday crowd like Maz suggested? That’s two days from now...will the samples be there in time?” She has a vague idea how much Kylo can get in that time but decides to play the newbie card for believability.

“That won’t be an issue. We wouldn’t have asked Kylo to handle it if we were expecting to take things slowly here,” the other woman assures her.

“Good. So see you Thursday, then,” and suddenly Rey is more than a little nervous.

 

“If all goes well, yes,” Phasma says and adds a passing shot as they part ways. “And do give him something to think about before you go making eyes at our targets, Hux mentioned Kylo gets a bit possessive, and it’d be a shame if he destroyed our source of income over it.”

“He’s got nothing to worry about,” Rey says, hailing a cab and it’s as much to Phasma as it is to herself. There’s no one but Ben, as hopeless as that is.

 

In the cab and slowly on her way, caught in some heavy evening rush traffic, she texts him to hear if he’s home because she only realises now that he didn’t give her a key to his place yet and he answers promptly.

 

_Am home. Waiting somewhat patiently._

 

He’s too old and too Kylo Ren for winky emojis but they’re implied. She smiles to herself, feeling the tingles creep back from the pit of her stomach into the endings of her nerves. She wonders what he’ll do first, wonders if he’ll be as gentle as he’d been last night or if he’ll handle her with more force behind it still. She can’t really make her mind up what she wants more. Maybe a bit of both.

 

She indulges the fantasies, remembering with a shiver how his fingers danced on her skin the night before and her body does what it does these days. She’ll be ready to go the second she closes the door behind her. The cab can’t get back to Brooklyn fast enough but they are still trapped between an avalanche of cars at a traffic light somewhere in mid-town.

 

And then something familiar catches her eyes. A movement, a pattern of steps, a tread of a pair of legs she knows. Those well-known limbs stop, just before her window and she looks up and there he is. _Finn_ . And his favorite, worn leather jacket much like the one she is wearing right now, the one that’s been his trademark for as long as she’s known him. It’s a jolt that sends her twitching upright and she can’t decipher what she’s feeling exactly but it’s decidedly painful and _too much_.

 

He seems relaxed, in thought, wholesome and okay and she can’t look away, not even when he becomes aware of the girl staring at him from the cab window. His features snap into recognition and he seems dumbfounded at first, then confused and then pleased in the sweet and pure, innocent way only Finn can be. And he lifts a single hand into a wave that is not really a wave and smiles. There is sadness behind his eyes but for the most part, he is just happy to see her. It’s that smile that kills her, his pure, kind-hearted affection that turns everything she feels right on its head. It’s this smile that haunts her from the second the cab takes her away from that fateful intersection.

 

What on earth is she doing? She has left this man, this wonderful, perfectly good man behind, crushed and broken-hearted in her apartment, like a glorified house-sitter to do what? Investigate a crime-ring and keep a horrific child trafficking operation from taking place and what exactly is she spending her time with? Killing people she doesn’t know, plotting to sell drugs to college kids and happily on her way to have sex with the First Order poster-phantom Kylo Ren.

 

She feels like she is being woken harshly from a very humiliating dream, like she doesn’t know herself anymore. She’s done exactly what she was afraid of doing, falling into this trap of attraction and stupid, senseless want and she was actually silly enough to revel in the fall until a minute ago. She should be dragged to the beating pole by her hair and have some sense hammered into her skull. It’s a challenge not to scream or throw up in the car. She feels sick enough for both. How did she let this happen to her? She’s supposed to be better than that, smarter. She is a federal goddamn agent. If aiding and abetting a wanted criminal wasn’t the pit of shame, now her morals had actually decayed enough to be _bedding_ him?

 

No, she can’t. She wants Ben, will always want Ben but he isn’t Ben anymore, is he? So she can’t keep acting like he is, like kissing him and touching him isn’t crossing a line she may not be able to come back from already.

 

Rationally, it is all so clear, so fucking clear she wants to cry. She has lost herself somewhere between the first night in his kitchen and that text he’d sent when she got in the cab. _Oh god_ , the text. He is waiting for her her, right now. To do that rainchecked thing she wanted so badly such a short time ago; to cross that final border and bury everything she needs to be. She can’t. Can’t possibly. But there’s nowhere else to go, no home, no place that is hers. He won’t do anything without her express consent, that is no concern but he won’t understand that she can’t give it anymore and how could he? He is what he is and for all he knows, going from the way she’s thrown herself on him, she must seem fine with it but she isn’t. Not anymore, not when she’s just seen Finn who is everything Ben is not. Who reminded her that she is also everything Ben is not and that that’s how it _should_ be.

 

She can’t be that person, can’t allow herself to fall for something her body and her damned heart want when her brain is trapped beneath the weight of them. Her brain should be heard, it’s in the right here, and she’ll be damned if she lets her sense of right and wrong, of _justice_ , be diluted by her childish reveries of Ben’s redemption or her wretched libido.

 

The cab drives on, across the Hudson and into Brooklyn and by the time she gets out the by now familiar two blocks before the apartment building, she is resolved and as certain as she will ever be. Nothing more will happen. Not tonight and not ever. She has let this go on too far already and it’s time to put an end to it. She owes that to herself. Or to her country at the very least.

 

Still, in the elevator, she thinks she might be sick having to face him. She doesn’t want to, she wants to run and hide but she doesn’t have a choice and when he opens up, his wide smile is enough to make her heart shrivel to the size of a pea.

 

“How did it go?” he asks, so far oblivious to the change in her.

“Fine,” she says tight-lipped and awkwardly. “We go in Thursday.” Rey pushes past him, putting her leather jacket along with the duffle bag to the side and she doesn’t know how to behave now, tries to appear normal but thinks she fails spectacularly.

“Alright,” he says, eyeing her. “It went well then. We’re going with _Maz’s Castle_? Or did you settle on somewhere else?”

“Nope, the _Castle_ it is,” she replies flatly. “Did you...get...all the merchandise?”

“I was there to ensure delivery, not pick it up personally, but we should have no trouble on that front,” Ben answers but he sounds like he’s asking her what is going on.

 

Rey stalls, because she is a horrible person, stays on the topic of business so they don’t get personal and moves away from him where he stands near the kitchen to sit on the couch. “Good,” she nods and says something that needs saying but not necessarily in the snappy way it comes out in. “But you know after this is done, we should try to get close to the docks operation. We can’t dick around with college kids trying to have a good time, you know. I need intel on the trafficking.”

 

“How do you want to get on with that, anyway?” He keeps perfectly calm, reassuring even, as if she’s just being antsy about the mission and they’ll be fine. “Are we looking for a reason to take you with me when I have to go look in on the operation next or will pictures suffice?”

“Pictures are a good start,” she says, infinitely glad that he is taking to her line of thought. “But ideally, I’d get close. I don’t know how they’ll bring the kids in but maybe there’ll be an in for an unsuspecting-looking female...someone kids would trust.” She hates that she has to think of it this way, like a predator, like a criminal. “If you could convince Hux or Snoke that I’m needy or ruthless enough to do everything you ask of me it could work maybe. To get me actually in on the op.”

 

“Ruthless takes time, and action, that I’m not sure you want to get the FBI involved in. By the time they bought that story, the operation would be well underway anyway,” he says, moving to sit with her and his physical presence is at once like the worst forbidden fruit and completely overwhelming. “We can get you in with me, but it’ll have to be after what we’re working on now.”

“I _know_ ; after the club thing,” she says flippantly and sighs, trying to shift away without him noticing. “Okay, so we’re gonna go for needy. Snoke should be made aware of me then, right? Of _us_. And he needs to think I’d do anything for you.” And this is going to be so horrible after what she needs to say to him.

 

“I can set up a meeting if you think that’ll help,” he says it like ‘case closed’ and he’s ready to move on from that topic, leaning toward her a little, not quite invasive yet, but present. “Like I said, that’s later. We get the other thing out of the way and go from there.”

He’s too close. She can’t deal with this right now and so she ducks away from him, walks into the kitchen and makes herself a bowl of cereal for dinner that she has zero appetite for.

 

“Okay, did I offend you somehow?” And now he’s annoyed.

“No, don’t be silly.” She speaks to her bowl and pushes big spoonfuls into her mouth like a fucking evasive coward. “I haven’t eaten all day.” If she’s ever tried to deflect anything, it’s his suspicion right now and she smiles hard enough to strain but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“You’re a terrible fucking liar, Rey,” he says.

She’s squirming, her skin crawling with guilt and reluctance, and she puts the spoon down. She has to give him something, just some little white lie so she doesn’t have to say the words.

“I feel like shit, okay.” Which is true. “I’ve never done this before, just _assassinate_ people, sell drugs to kids, think about how I can graduate from that to selling actual _kids_ , period. I’m a decent person. This is hard.”

 

Ben stands like a snap and his voice is soothing and low as he walks over to her.

“I know you are, that’s why you’re doing it. Because it’s what’s right, even if it’s hard.”

She wants to scream. He’s so right, he has no idea how right he is. She has to do what is right, even if it kills her to do it. Next thing she knows, he is with her, behind her, brushing his palms down her arms, almost holding her but not quite.

 

“It’s in the service of good, I promise.” Slowly, he leans down, one hand cupping her jaw and then he dips his head to kiss her, caught exactly halfway between comforting and consuming and she gets momentarily lost in his lips, in the soft but urgent pressure behind them. She sighs into his body, wanting to disappear into him, away from this life and what she has to do to him next. Because she has to and breaking the kiss becomes a task, a trying one that nearly breaks her but she manages, at last, but only by physically lunging away from him, a few paces away. Far enough so she can hear past her own drumming heartbeat. He looks befuddled and confused, like she slapped him in the face and he doesn’t know for what.

 

“What happened?” he asks, visibly afraid of whatever answer she might give him. “Did Phasma tell you something to make you...like this?”

“No.” She shakes her head, incredulous. “But she did tell me that being attached to people is weakness in your circles. And maybe she’s right.”

That gets the first real little rise out of him and he’s all the more puzzled where she’s going with this. “What, so you want me to be like them? Even when we’re alone?”

“No.” Because of course that’s not what she wants at all. She can’t go on, doesn’t have the balls to and maybe just because she’s really an asshole who makes decisions and then can’t bear to follow through on it.

 

“What _do_ you want, Rey?” She thinks he means to be cutting but the naked vulnerability behind his words is enough to break her open. “You don’t want me to touch you, you don’t want me to be detached, do you even know what you want?”

“I know I don’t want _this_ ,” she says and it’s blatantly not true, but she believes fervently she has to feel that way and she will fake it till she makes it. She’ll be free of this desire if it kills her.

 

“What does that even mean?” He takes a step forward, bordering on getting in her face but it’s not so much aggressive as it is desperate and he likely doesn’t think about it when he puts his hands on her shoulders like she’s running away and he’s just trying to hold her there.

“ _This_ pretending to be these people that can just…” she splutters and pushes his arms away. “Go home to each other and have a… _thing_. I can’t do that. I can’t. ...Sleep with you and kiss you and feel these things, when you are who you are, it’s just...that’s not my life. That’s not who I am.”

 

Ben snaps back to stand straight, and his face goes cold when the weight of her words seems to hit him like a freight train. Now it’s out and she can’t take it back.

“I hate to break it to you, Rey, but this is _exactly_ who you are,” his voice is ice and he sounds vindictive at best and cruel at worst and it’s because he is deeply hurt, she knows because it’s written on his face like a billboard ad. “You’re the one who keeps trying to tell me I’m, what, something _more_ than this. It’s a little late to decide you’re some saint who’s better than me because you have a badge.”

Rey feels uncomfortably trapped in his logic because it’s sound as anything but still, Finn is in the back of her head, reminding her of goodness and purity and all the things she should be and yes, she isn’t, because of course Ben is right.

 

“Yeah, well, I _should_ be, shouldn’t I? And you...you get everywhere. I can’t...think. I need to be better than this.” That’s what it all boils down to, really.

“Oh, I get everywhere, do I?” He speaks low and there is something dangerous in his woundedness. “Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about how you come in here and you make me talk to you, and you listen, and you- You win over my coffee maker and fix my TV and make me _dance_ for you like some kind of puppet. I haven’t been what I was since that stupid motel, and _you’re_ the one who did that.”

 

In any other time and place, it would be an admission of something beautiful, but the way he says it, it’s an accusation.

 

“And that’s...great,” she says helplessly and means it, “but it doesn’t really change anything, does it?” He looks slapped, because obviously for him it changes everything, and what is wrong with her that she doesn’t see that? “You’re a criminal, I’m a fed, that’s what this is,” she says because he has to understand at least this. “I have a mission, a job to do. And I can’t...throw that away because I can’t stop thinking with my fucking cunt.”

 

Her crudeness hangs in the empty air for a second and her own ears ring with it. She will never be that crass about it ever again and she watches his face twist in comprehension but she can’t think about that right now, if she starts to think about his feelings, she will falter.

Ben nearly hisses at her, obviously furious that she’s reducing everything that’s happened between them, everything they are, to a matter of hormones which is as cruelly unfair as it is untrue. And he knows it.

 

“If you were just thinking with your _fucking cunt_ , I would’ve had you screaming the first night you showed up here, and we both know it,” he says and the truth of it cuts her like a knife. “Stop pretending you haven’t been doing your best to keep from spreading your legs this whole time. Stop pretending you wouldn’t have done it yesterday, this morning. Stop acting like that all never happened!”

Now she is pushed over into anger, because he raised his voice at her and because he’s _right_. She hates him passionately for that, for seeing through her like she’s made of glass, for making it abundantly clear just what kind of sorry traitor to the entire fucking nation she is and she pettily wants to get back at him for that.

“Good thing I held up, then,” she says and gathers her wits for the sucker punch. It’s neither pretty nor fair and he doesn’t deserve it even after all he’s done.

 

“It would’ve been a _colossal_ mistake.”

 

***

 

_For a heartbeat, Kylo isn’t sure why that one sentence strikes him like it does. But then, he supposes it makes sense. He’s a mistake, he always has been, he’d just had the naive idea that Rey might be the only one to see him as a person and not a collection of crimes and faults. It’s what he is, though, he’s just been too stubborn and blinded by the strange hopefulness she stirs in him to keep that fact in mind._

 

_“You’re right, it would’ve been a mistake,” he says, as cold as he can make himself. “But let’s not kid ourselves. You’re not talking about fucking me. You still want that, don’t you? You just don’t want the mess that goes along with it. Don’t want to face what it says about you that you want someone like me.”_

 

_“There’s no mess when there is nothing but sex.” He can almost see her mind click over into really fighting with him, and it puts his back up in ways he’s not proud of. “This could never have been more than sex, so why should I keep making an ass of myself, pretending?”_

 

_“So go ahead,” he challenges, moving fast so her retreat from him puts her back against the wall and he’s pinning her in, fairly towering over her with the full advantage of his height. “If it’s just sex, what are you waiting for? Afraid you’ll find something else?”_

 

_“What’s it to you?” It’s a challenge, but one he’s willing to meet with her breath barely in check and determination painted across her face. This is doing things to her, the proximity, the brush of his body against hers. In another time, he’d used that power for good, to make her smile and sigh and shiver. Now it’s a weapon and she fights its effects, visibly. “You did well enough without me before, you’ll be fine when I’m gone.” She says it the same way Kylo has been told to go fuck himself by too many voices not to know the tone well._

 

 _“I_ will _be fine when you’re gone. I’m not the one pulling the brakes early because I tripped over my morals somewhere.”_

_“See, you get it,” she says, maneuvering like water, like she had in the park, so she’s abruptly out of his reach and moving away. “Morals, Ben.”_

_“Morals are relative,” he says, watching her retreat and keeping his voice level though it’s a struggle. “Me and mine are fine as is.”_

 

_He’s far from fine, so far he doesn’t think he can even remember what ‘fine’ feels like without looking at Rey. Not like this though. There’s something twisting and false about her sudden hypocrisy, and he can’t abide it. She’s lying to herself if she thinks she can divide them into black and white without acknowledging the myriad shades of grey between them. He won’t be lectured on morality by a woman who refuses to see there’s more here than just what her laws define as right or wrong._

 

 _“Do you really believe that? Working with a man who treats women like glorified furniture to put his dick in? Getting college kids drugged up for a living? And then living off of that blood money? Serving a master who orders kills like he’s using a takeout menu?” She’s really worked herself up, throwing all this at him like knives before she makes a begrudging concession. “I mean, it speaks for you that you draw the line at selling kids into what is likely sex slavery, but_ fine _is really not the word I’d use to describe your morals.”_

 

_“I don’t make anyone’s choices for them. If people want to get themselves into the kind of shadows I live in, so be it,” he snaps, genuinely insulted. For someone he’d thought knew him better than anyone, she must not know him at all if she thinks these people are the ones whose standards he holds himself to. There’s a reason he’s so good at killing the fuckers, and it’s not because he empathizes. “I’m not going to let that happen to a bunch of fucking kids who have no choice, but you’d better believe I don’t lose any sleep at night over the scum who crawl their way into my path.”_

 

_He carefully doesn’t think about the little snatches of sleep he’s been getting for years, worse in the last year than ever before, and then suddenly, unshockingly so much better with Rey sleeping beside him. He doesn’t think about words like justification or excuses, steadfastly holding down those demons. If he lets them up now, all Rey will do is throw them in his face the way she throws herself at him now, landing what must be a half-hearted punch to his chest._

 

_“You should, you fucking should.” She does it again and he lets her, the blow more frustration than power, hardly making him move. “I would…”_

 

_Kylo can see her battling with herself for the words she either can’t or won’t say. It’s a mystery to him what she has there behind her teeth, because she just goes to punch him again, giving him the trite line that “This can’t happen.”_

 

_He catches her last punch, impatient with the juvenile display, and holds her there. “You keep telling yourself that, Rey,” he says when he does toss her fist back to her, careless and mean. “Like I said, I don’t make anyone’s choices for them.”_

 

_She can’t be giving up, because Kylo has never known Rey to do that, but she walks out on him. Technically, she walks to the bed, gets her things, and goes into the bathroom, but he takes it the argument is over. If not for good, then for the night. She does silently climb into the bed when she’s done, however, and Kylo isn’t sure if he should take it as a challenge, but he does._

 

_They gravitate in the night, though he’d gone to sleep with his back to her and a good amount of space between them. He wakes too close to her anyway, blinking into consciousness with the swing of her hair moving away from him. He can feel how close she was, the residual warmth of her body, and knows she wasn’t careful getting up because she’d awoken to the same proximity he instinctively knows she just retreated from._

 

_It goes on for the whole of the two days, a simmering antagonism between them that boils over at times until Rey completely ices him out, refusing to speak. He can’t stop the way he’s hyper aware of her, the way they orbit around each other, almost waiting for the moment when the lights go out and all bets are seemingly off. Rey stops pretending they won’t wake up with mere centimeters between them and at night, when they go to bed angry, the tension shifts and warps until Kylo can recognize it for what it is - she does want him. It’s like a current she emits, like pulse waves, like chemistry._

 

_She wants him exactly like she did when they danced, like she did after the ballet, like she did before whatever happened when she was out with Phasma that made her turn her back on everything they could have together. Her heated speech of right and wrong has done nothing to quench that desire. He can practically feel her hovering close to the edge. He stares hard at the back of her neck in the dark, willing her to turn over and do something about it, like he can drag at her with his mind until her own hypocrisy lies in shambles at their feet._

 

 _The daylight hours are spent getting the affairs in order for the op at_ Maz’ Castle _. He ensures a quick delivery of merchandise to Phasma’s base and Rey spends her days researching exactly what is in those drugs and collecting every bit of info he can give her on where it comes from and she’s on the phone with Maz a lot._

 

_One time when they’re out, Phasma takes him to the side and asks him what is going on with them._

_“We had a fight,” he says levelly, because it’s useless to lie. A blind man could see they’ve been fighting and a deaf man could hear it. Phasma is neither, so she knows anyway._

_“I can see that,” she says dryly. “What about?”_

_“None of your damn business, Phasma,” he grits out._

_“Oh, you can be very certain it is my business if it endangers our operation,” she snaps. “Snoke has tasked Hux with overseeing the op and you can bet if she tanks it because she’s not focused, he will be the one to teach her a lesson.”_

 

_This makes his skin crawl and while he is still angry with Rey, he can’t even begin to imagine what he would do to Hux if he tried anything of the “teaching her a lesson”-sort, or what that monster takes for it. It isn’t pretty but the ginger bastard would probably not live long enough after to tell the tale of it. He’s been able to keep from seriously injuring Hux so far but should he even attempt to lay a finger on Rey, Kylo would kill him with his bare hands._

_“She needs new clothes, too,” Phasma adds in an afterthought that seems awfully pedestrian in the greater scheme of things. “She needs to look approachable, not like a gutter rat.”_

 

_So Kylo Ren shops, outside in the day for the second time in a week. It’s better that it’s him. He has more fashion sense than she does and he knows her size and what Phasma expects her to look like. So he doesn’t bother taking her with him, and he doesn’t think about what she might do alone as he leaves without her. He just comes back with a couple sets of women’s clothes and tosses them at her, the red dress he picked himself catches her eye and it’s worth fantasizing about if he were so inclined, which he is, but not in a particularly nice way. She just nods the clothes off then and doesn’t even offer a thank you. The only thing that gets a little rise of her is the fiver pack of new panties he dunks onto the shiny new items and upon recognizing what they are and what the obvious message behind them is, she glares at him with nothing short of hatred._

 

_“Go fuck yourself,” she tells him and her ears are red enough to tell him she actually still very much needs those. It wasn’t very mature of him, none of it, neither buying them nor throwing them almost at her head. And the way he is deeply satisfied with her flustered, antagonistic reaction is adolescent at best but he will not forsake himself that basic, unflattering joy._

 

_She goes on speaking only when it’s absolutely necessary and when the evening rolls in, she apparently deems it so, standing on her edge of the bed in her ridiculous Snoopy sleeping shorts and a tank top, sans bra, which he wishes he didn’t notice._

 

_“You know, we need to be civil tomorrow. Hux will know something’s wrong if you’re off like this,” she says and it’s pathetic and mean of her to put it all on him when she is acting just as abrasive and crazy, if not more so._

_Kylo takes the bait anyway, far be it for him to let her in the dark of just how civil he can be when he wants to. He could be so_ civil _, she’d be shivering under his tongue, spread wide open for him on the bed, crying out his name and forgetting her own if she only so much as said the word._

 

_He gives her a charring once-over, looking at her silly little-girl’s pajamas like it’s the sexiest thing she’s ever worn, and steps into her space for a heartbeat to kiss her just under her hairline. Her breath catches, like it’s bound to._

_“You’re gonna do great, sweetheart,” he mutters overly sugary, and maybe Rey is biased, but Hux would never see through it and not only because he wouldn’t know tenderness if it clubbed him over the head with a bat._

 

_“Fuck you,” she hisses into the crook of his neck but it might sound like something else, hotly and breathless as it is._

_“Not very civil of you,” he snickers and steps back, his face all annoyance once again. He nearly pulls something in his attempt of not giving away how fast his pulse is going just from being in her proximity again after days of distance only breached in the night by necessity and adolescent shenanigans both of them are too old for._

_“We should sleep,” she grits out of a tensely clenched jaw and pointedly doesn’t look at him. “Long day ahead.”_

 

_Rey climbs into the bed and immediately turns away from him in what has become a tried rite these past few nights. They lie there long enough for it to be believable that she could be drifting to sleep but he can tell by the strain on her breathing that she isn’t fully gone. He mentally prepares himself for a reenactment of the previous nights, moving in just marginally, cruelly, so she knows he knows what she’s fighting so ineffectively. He inhales and exhales deeply, louder than he would if he was alone and it’s all for her._

 

_There is nothing to announce the shift that happens but Kylo realizes she must’ve made a snap decision because she is with him in the next heartbeat. If he were naive or an idiot, he could believe she is dreaming and just turned in her sleep but he’s not and she didn’t._

 

 _She ends up with her ass inches away from his dick, folding herself into the little spoon position in an utterly cruel way. She dangles herself there, so close to touch but she doesn’t close the gap. She wants him to, because this is what she does once the lights go out and he hates her for it. For wanting him to_ take it _instead of giving herself because she hides behind her reasoning and reservations. So he’ll be the rapturous beast when she comes to what she believes should be her senses. And damn it, if she were_ anyone _else, he would’ve dug into her like a wild animal long ago. But as it is, he has this giant blockade in his brain he can’t overcome. She’s right, he is who he is and he has done what he’s done and she needs to take that last step on her own. Especially if she keeps reiterating that hurtful “colossal mistake”-line to herself._

 

 _All the same, he is done being fucked around by her for it at any rate and she isn’t drunk or asleep now, so fuck her. If she insists on being coy about it, he won’t let himself be pushed to the brink again and again, teased into insanity by her always ghosting around the lines. Let her have it the way she wants, let her feel him. Let her have just a_ taste _. She knows he can give it to her. He could have her panting and shaking in a matter of minutes but he isn’t in that much of a gracious mood. He’ll repay her with exactly the thing he gets from her; mind-bending want and no release._

 

_He gives a little push forward, further to her under the blanket to draw her in by her hips and it’s enough to bridge the distance and make her gasp. Her firm, small ass molds into his lap like she was built to fit him in every way. It takes him about six seconds until he’s rock-hard for her. She makes note of this and her exaggerated breathing gives her bullshit away. She is wide awake, of course. A bit slow to respond, she rolls into him, breaking the movements down into fragments and each little bit she gives him sparks fireworks low in his gut._

 

_He has been here before, pressed up against her like this. He knows how she feels from this angle, knows how she goes crazy when he reaches around her body and drenches his fingers with her. He knows she is wet as fuck for him right this second and his hand on her hip twitches on its own from wanting badly to find out just how much._

 

_He digs into her flesh to hold back. Because this isn’t foreplay. If it were, she’d already be all over his dick. She used to go for that first, always first when she wanted him, her lithe fingers closing around his length and teasing him until he couldn’t take it anymore. But she won’t do it now, like a stubborn little minx, obviously bent on wrecking him entirely. So he keeps himself where he is._

 

 _Instead, he indulges her rubbing and rocking herself against his cock beneath the flimsy fabrics of both their underwear for the fucked up thrill of it. She is selfish in the night, with no regard for her brain or his and he hates how rawly he loves it. It’s gonna tear him apart, he knows this with the certainty of death. She will have him completely if he gives in. It grinds his gears if he’s honest, but not enough to fight her off. To even think he_ could _is ridiculous. He wants her with every fibre of his wretched being and if it means having her the way he can only barely admit he needs, he would rip off all his limbs with his own hands. He’ll die wrapped around her if that’s what it takes. Gladly. But he’s broken himself open for her enough times, it’s her turn to break a little._

 

_The little moan that escapes her when he meets her movement alone is worth his utter destruction a million times. He feels like a teenager, fumbling and trembling under the covers and it’s the same exhilaration he’s known as this side of him slowly awoke when he was barely old enough to drive. Since then, he’s always been a very sensually aware person, it’s sort of the frequency he works at but no one’s ever been quite as in tune with it as Rey. The way they move needs no thought, no conscious acts, it just flows, like a current, like the sea and it takes not a beat to shift back into it. It’s like breathing, moving onto her like this._

 

 _He presses his mouth into the spot between her shoulder blades and growls on soft skin, knowing that she won’t have the guts to acknowledge this, let alone discuss it come morning. So he groans low and guttural against her, making her body vibrate with his bass. It makes her grind onto him harder and he thinks he might be passing out. She is vicious, she is bad,_ so bad, _sighing and moving like she does now, like she’s ready to take in his entire being, absolutely everything he is and consume it. He wanted to tease_ her _, godammit. He wanted_ her _to break but the only one in fragments is himself._

 

 _“It’s just_ sex _, Rey,” he says feverishly, hardly a whisper, and sneered at her despite it. “Take what you want.”_

_The only response she gives at first is a series of tiny interruptions in her breathing, her body jerking and twitching along, before she seems to stop any motion entirely and it fills him with a wicked pride and satisfaction that he can do that to her with nothing but words and a little pressure from his groin. He can taste the possibility in the air around them, half knows that she will give in now, finally turn around and get it._

 

_But then suddenly, things spiral out of control because she does the one thing he has not factored in she could do. Yet, this is still Rey and while she is many things, predictable is not one of them, not even for him after all this time. Her arm shifts._

 

 _Momentarily bereft of air as he’s half choking on his tongue, he can feel where it’s going and how she repositions herself. There’s the hint of pressure against his cock as her fingers brush the head of him before she starts_ touching herself _. She gasps under her own fingers and he can’t._ Anything _. It’s too much. How? How can she do this to him?_

 

 _He needs to get away from there before he starts to_ beg _like the worm he is or just whips her around by the shoulders to fuck her stubborn brains out right there._

 

_He grunts again loudly and then twists away from her, out of the bed, out of the room, darts head first into the tub and doesn’t even really step out of his briefs before fisting his cock hard and relentlessly. It’s a sad testament to the sorry state of his life that he is right there again. In his tub, clutching his dick because he can’t have the woman that is literally lying in his bed, touching herself. He’d laugh if it wasn’t so fucking tragic._

 

_He jerks off like he might explode if he doesn’t alleviate the tension, his thoughts decidedly different from the last time he found himself here. It’s not soft skin and gentle sighs in his mind now, but a bruising fight, the both of them clawing at each other for release, the impossible bend of Rey’s neck as he rips it back by her hair, open to his teeth and the tight heat of her, probably filled with her own fingers right now. He hopes she’s just as unsatisfied as he is._

 

_He whimpers and mewls desperately as he comes and makes a mess but he doesn’t give a shit about cleaning up after himself right now. Blindly, he staggers forward against the tiles until his forehead connects with porcelain and turns the water on to scorching, showering for half an hour and another orgasm that he won’t stop chasing until he is sensitive and hurting from going at himself too hard. It’s the only way he’ll sleep at all; if his fucking dick hurts enough to shut the fuck up._

 

 _She is asleep or at least pretending to be when he gets back in the room but he retreats to the couch. He can’t share this bed with her without losing his fucking mind and he is not about to, not if she won’t_ take _it from him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy, so, was it good for you? So we know the chapters are a long and might be overwhelming but we would love to hear your thoughts, even if it's just about one little scene here or there, because we spent literally a week on every chapter and getting a review is so so so wonderful and gratifying and we also love sounding off with you guys over the story.
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> Thank you for sticking around and until next week - we hope you'll stay on this ride with us <3


	6. CHAPTER SIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early(ish) update and I hope you're all prepared for a ride. As always, our love goes out to you, the readers, new and old. Your comments keep us sane in all this madness and really, truly make our days. Thanks for sticking with us so far!
> 
> Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for..
> 
> [SONG: Breathe (2AM) by Anna Nalick]

**CHAPTER SIX: [But My God, It's So Beautiful When the Boy Smiles]**

 

Ben has been brooding the entire day, stalking around like a wounded animal, and he won’t speak to her, which she is generally fine with. But his bad mood is grinding down her nerves like brimstone. Even more so because in the back of her head, she knows he has every right to be furious with her. Still, she’d sooner die than admit it. He’s been passive aggressively but not verbally commenting on everything she’s doing, like the pettiest of assholes and it’s setting her on edge until she breaks after one especially loud huff from over where he’s standing, angrily doing the dishes.

 

“If you got something to say, fucking say it,” she challenges from her spot on the couch.

“What could I possibly say that would matter to you?” He sounds as vindictive as he’s ever been.

“I don’t know, _Ben_ , but you can take your stupid sneers and shove ‘em up your ass,” she snaps, intending to put her foot down. “I don’t need that today.”

He slams down whatever dish he’s currently washing so it nearly breaks, ready to fight at the drop of a hat. “And it’s all about what _you_ need, isn’t it?”

 

“Don’t gimme that shit,” she says stubbornly but knows she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. She doesn’t care. “Last night is pretty much on you.” It’s unfair insinuating he was the driving force behind anything that went on during the night, but he did push against her after all, setting a chain of events into motion she’s only barely been able to keep from escalating beyond madly getting herself off before she could turn around and throw out her resolutions and her brain along with them.

“Last night-” He nearly laughs, mania in his tone somewhere, and has to stop himself short because he’s probably very close to screaming. Still, with a self-control she would applaud if she wasn’t so frustrated with him, he pulls himself back. “Last night was _your_ mistake. If you want to be a bitch about it, I’m glad I fucking left so you can’t tell me how I forced myself on you or some bullshit.”

 

“I would _never_ .” Rey snaps up from where she’s sitting, genuinely insulted that he could accuse her of accusing _him_ of abuse and lunges toward him, getting in his face, ready to physically fight him when she speaks again. “And call me a bitch one more time, _I’d really like that_.”

“You keep pushing me and you won’t like what you get,” he seethes, looking down at her with gritted teeth. “Don’t do this, Rey.”

 

His eyes are glowing dangerously and her body and brain spike with two possible, equally as tempting prospects; either land a punch on his chin or rip his shirt off his body and fuck him blind against the counter and she can do neither, realistically. So she just stands her ground and repeats herself, cuttingly. “Don’t call me a bitch.”

Ben reacts to her faint deescalation by leaning back away from her, and his own tone is wounded, equally saddened and thrumming with the potential to lash out. “Don’t _be_ one.” And he moves so she can’t chase after that comment, grabbing his jacket and going for his shoes. “I’m going out.”

 

The door slams and Rey is left to her own devices in Ben’s studio yet again. He has done that a lot these last two days. Just storm off on her. She wants nothing more than to be glad about it but fails. As warped and twisted as it is, she already misses his presence, if for nothing else than a ramming block for her anger, her longing and the endless frustration the two cause her in turn and so, to clear her mind, she calls the radio station and requests a song.

 

She can place the call with any station in the NYC area, so long as they have an online ticker of their songs and a monitoring program at the bureau branch will pick it up and forward her message to SSA Dameron. Going by Carol from Queens, she puts in a request for Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd which translates directly to: Meet me today. Then she waits, refreshing her spam mail folder of her very recent deep-cover persona’s email address and waits for one randomized account sending her a mail that reads “BET CONFIRMED” in its header. It’s a code they’ve established and it tells her all she needs to know.

 

_Brooklyn, East river meeting point, Two PM. Meeting Confirmed._

 

Rey leaves half an hour earlier than she would have to make the meeting, just so she can sit by the waterside and smoke, two, three cigarettes, glancing over the low roll of water and think about what exactly she is going to tell Poe Dameron.

 

His own cover is that of an unsuspecting fellow walking his dog, his new golden retriever Beebee prancing ahead and starting at Rey because he knows her. It’s the perfect excuse for Dameron to sit down next to her as she strokes the overly excited pup’s fur.

“You’re late to check in,” he says, voice slightly reprimanding but lips smiling as to not raise suspicion from onlookers. “And you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Rey replies flatly. “I’m very method.” _And not really sleeping_ , she thinks but doesn’t say. “It took me half a week to find someone who could pass a message. He didn’t doubt my story for a second, though.”

“So?” SSA Dameron raises an eyebrow, doubling over to grab Beebee behind both ears and coo a little as he shakes his fur and flesh in his grip.

“So, he took me in,” she says. “I’m living with him. He’s introduced me to the higher ups, so I can make some money. I’m having my first gig for the First Order tonight.”

 

Her team leader listens, noting what must sound like a giant leap forward in the investigation with undimmed pride and approval. “That’s impressive. I knew it was a good call getting you into training early. You’re doing good work, Kenobi. You should be proud.”

Rey smiles when she really wants to cringe because she deserves any of that praise at all and when she doesn’t say anything, he goes on instead. “Do you need backup tonight?”

“No,” she says quickly. “This has to go over well, I need the in.”

He nods. “Anything else?”

“I taped a stick with everything I got so far underneath the bench,” she say, knowing Dameron will stick around a while until after she is gone to inconspicuously retrieve it and really, this is all they need to talk about for now. The check-in is done but she can’t quite make herself leave yet.

 

“Sir, can I ask you something?” she says, almost sheepishly and barely loud enough to carry.

“Shoot,” he says, obviously having heard her anyway.

“Have you…” she begins, wrestling the words from her skull, “seen Finn lately? Is he okay?”

 

She stares at her feet, smiling like they’ve just fallen into an amicable silence in their dog-related small-talk and feels her supervisor’s eyes on her.

“I’ve seen him around,” he says. “Did not take you leaving too well. He said he saw you in a cab three days ago.”

“That’s true,” she says, wondering how recently Dameron must’ve talked to Finn then and feeling horrible. If Finn misses her so badly that he reaches out to her superior - and from the sounds of it, repeatedly - she doesn’t even want to dwell on imagining how distraught he really is. “Sir, I know you’re very busy and...you don’t owe me anything. But...if I could still ask you for a small favor…” She trails off, thinking better of it, feeling instantly stupid for even considering to ask.

 

“Anything, Kenobi,” he says quickly and smiles a charming, kind smile. “You’re risking your life every day for your country, a favor is the least I can do.”

“Can you look out for him a little?” She asks with all the hope of a child. “Take him out for a beer or the shooting range, or _somewhere_ . Take his mind off of me, he shouldn’t be-” And she hesitates, because saying what she means to say is essentially admitting something she wasn’t half ready or willing to admit these past few days. “He shouldn’t be _waiting_ for me.” Because she doesn’t know how long she’ll be and she doesn’t know if she can go back to him after. If anything, she won’t be the woman who left him.

 

Dameron nods and tells her he will do what he can and she bids him a grateful thank you and goodbye but where she should feel reassured by his promise, she feels hollow and grieving instead. It felt like saying goodbye to Finn all over again. This plea of hers is all but a confession. The life she led with Finn is most likely done, she knows it, like it never really happened in the first place.

 

She wants to hate Ben for messing her up like that, but as her feet carry her forward to the subway station, she knows the only one to blame is herself. And she resolves to keep paying for that. Going back to him, trying to feel numb about it, very much aware that the rest of her op practically chained to his side will hurt enough to provide a myriad of opportunities for penance. So many more nights trapped in that bed beside him, dying to tear into his body and not being able to. Maybe that’ll be enough suffering to make up for what she’s doing to Finn, to her career, the bureau and her own life.

Letting herself in with his spare key, she finds him interrupted in what must’ve been restless pacing and he hisses instantly, demanding and antsy. “Where were you?”

“Checking in with my SSA,” she says flatly and then pushes over into sarcasm. “Sorry I didn’t leave a note, didn’t think you would care.”

“You’re being childish,” he says and it hangs there, all frustration and the unspoken accusation that she knows full well he does care and she is horrible to suggest otherwise. He runs his hand through his hair, taking a deep breath and she thinks it might be best to join him in his quest for level-headedness when he speaks again. “We have things to see to before tonight.”

 

“I know,” she says and proceeds to rattle down her mental task list, not able to keep her abrasiveness all the way at bay. “Call Phasma, call Maz, get dressed, put the knife in my clutch, put the drugs in my clutch, I think I got it.”

“No, I want you to have easier access to a weapon if you need it,” and he tosses her something small and black which she easily catches. It’s a thigh holster for a knife which will sit flat above the hem of her dress. “That should be quicker if you have any trouble.”

 

Just like that, dedicated to the business and logistics, there is nothing in his voice anymore, not apprehension, not even annoyance and it’s a testament to how entirely done he is with engaging her. Somehow that makes her angrier than any condescending comment he’s made these past few days.

 

She locks herself in the bathroom to talk to Maz one last time for the remaining details. They’ll be using her back room as a stashing point in case Rey runs out of samples and should there be a raid, which is pretty unlikely but might still happen, that same back room has a hidden corridor to the neighbouring basement from the building’s speakeasy days. Should anything at all go south, that’s their exit strategy. Begrudgingly, Rey informs Maz that Hux will be present and has requested she take care of the two consorts he’ll bring. “Take care of” in his world means a free bar and access to a secluded space for when he wants to get his cock sucked. Rey doesn’t have to say it out loud for Maz to understand.

 

Back in the kitchen, she brings Ben briefly up to speed and he does the same - although there is absolutely no news on Phasma’s end, except for the fact that she won’t be there. Ben hates it, the trade off between Phasma and Hux but there is nothing he can do about it. “Snoke’s orders,” he grits out and the hissing is more for his than for her benefit.

 

The day trickles by and into night in uneasy silence until the only thing left to do for both of them is to get dressed and she tries not to look when he strips out of his nondescript black jeans and shirt and steps into a white button down and very dark navy suit, tailored to fit him perfectly. He leaves the upper buttons open casually but he’ll look a bit too slick for the club anyway - so he doesn’t shave off the beard he’d grown over the last two days. He looks good, standing near the kitchen counter, annoyingly so and she wants to get back at him for even this.

 

She gets dressed with her knees brushing the edge of the bed when he rummages around uselessly in the kitchen. She can hear plates clatter once she unclasps her bra and tosses it onto a little pile of used clothes they keep building behind the dresser - because for all the shit he owns, a laundry bin is not among it.

 

She opts to wear no bra under the dress because the straps are an intricate mess and while Rey finds it a little uncomfortable going without support like that, Fuckup-Rey wouldn’t give a shit..so almost commando it is. The dress is a loud shade of red with a tight bodice, a geometric spiderweb of straps holding it and a flared skirt that reaches to her mid thigh. It fits her well and it’s nice enough. She would’ve never bought this herself though, the person it makes her into not necessarily how she would present herself. Checking her reflection in the mirror that hangs by the dresser, the only word that applies, without arrogance or false modesty, is _sexy_. Her legs look long and lean, her small waist perfectly accentuated, the whole cut of the piece complementing her shape like it was made for her. She wonders if Ben bought it because he knew or if that was just a lucky pick. If anything, it’ll do the job of turning some heads and getting the guys in the crowd interested in her.

 

She wonders if Ben is interested in her too despite everything, even though she shouldn’t care and it shouldn’t matter. She still walks over to the couch slowly, to where he’s slept the night before and where he’s laid out the thigh holster for her. She feels his eyes on her when she props up her leg on the armrest, shoves the dress up to have some room to work and very slowly, very thoroughly adjusts the black piece of reinforced fabric and fastens the small knife to it. When she looks up to catch his eye, he doesn’t flinch away, staring right at her. His jaw is clenched tight enough to hurt probably.

 

“Tempting enough?” she asks him and it’s unnecessary and childish but she’s not above it at all.

“It’ll do,” he grits out and then walks to the cabinets to get what’s left of the horrible no good tequila he has, fills two shot glasses and carries them over to her with a grim look on his face and pointedly not looking past hers.

“To your first solo,” he says and it’s probably the most cheerless toast ever made before drinking tequila, topped only by their most un-celebratory downing of the burning, disgusting liquor. In another life, she’d laugh about what might’ve been a pun on his name but nothing is funny right now.

 

Ben drives to the club and for once he sticks to the traffic laws, driving almost slower than he has to and she thinks he might not be too excited to actually arrive at their destination. Maz greets them at the back door and leads them into the private rooms, away from the thickening crowd. She hugs Rey with a conspiratory wink before she leaves and Rey is ready to go out and do it, when Hux pushes into the room and Ben immediately freezes behind her, his antagonism like a fourth presence in the room. The ginger leers at her body as if she was a car he could take for a spin and then turns to Ben with a sneer.

 

“Good job, Ren. Cleaned her up well. She looks really…,” and for a second she could believe he’ll actually say something not horrible but it’s still _Hux_. “Fuckable.”

“Your opinion is neither wanted nor needed,” Ben cuts in, looking at the other man like he’s something he found on the bottom of his shoe. “You’d fuck anything that stood still long enough.”

Rey deliberates if that was more of an insult to her or to Hux but doesn’t have the patience to deal with either one of their shit. Hux won’t let her off that easy though and he turns to her in an obvious attempt to rattle Ben.

 

“Don’t mess this up, doll,” he warns sharply. “I’ll make you sorry if you do.”

“I seem to remember cleaning up plenty of _your_ messes, Hux,” Ben tries hard for condescending and if one didn’t know him as well as Rey did, the very thin edge of aggression to his voice could be mistaken for arrogance. “None from Rey so far.”

“Get out there and do your jobs,” Hux says, opting to forego the insult because he possibly has nothing to come back with or because he wants to keep up the appearance of authority over Ben which is really all but an illusion.

“As you wish, _sir_ ,” Ben says and contradicts his words one, by his dripping sarcasm, and two, with the middle finger he holds out all the way from moving past Hux to grabbing hold of Rey’s waist and leaving the fucker behind.

 

Rey splits from Ben as soon as they’re on the main floor, dimly aware that he takes up a place at the bar and pushes into the middle of the space, between drumming, pushing bodies and dances for as long as it takes until the first brave soul breaks from his group of friends to grind against her, without so much as offering a hello, a name or to buy her a drink before rubbing his dick against her ass.

 

She checks to see if he’s in the customer spectrum and is pleased enough so she humors him and his cheap ass flirting attempts. Batting her eyelashes, she laughs the fakest of laughs at his pitiful lines and he buys it, like an idiot. Between all of this, she catches Ben from his seat at the bar watching, looking on with smug superiority and he must see the tells of her faking as if blinking neon arrows were pointing them out.

“So, you’re here alone?” She yells into her conquest’s ear over the booming bass and he shakes his head, his mouth hanging open and he looks so beyond stupid, she wants to laugh and never stop. “Well, get your buddies then, I feel like some more company.”

 

She tops this with a wink and he gives a double take before apparently decided that yes, he could be into that too and before long, she is surrounded by an entire group of frat boys. They’re trying to take turns dancing with her and she gives each and everyone a bit of her heavily-overacted attention before cutting to the chase.

“Aw, you guys,” she starts, keeping the valley girl tone she’s used for the whole ordeal so far, “you’re all so nice, I wanna do something for you.”

“Oh yeah, whattaya thinkin’?” One of them slurs and it’s the alpha of the group, a different guy than the one who approached her first and he takes the innuendo for what it was. Blatant bait.

 

“I have a little something,” she says, mystifyingly with a promising eyebrow-raise. “Makes you love everybody.”

To his credit, the dude understands immediately and he has the sense to consider her at first. “You got Molly or what?”

She nods, smiling sweetly and taps her clutch. “I took one earlier but being high alone is no fun at all, won’t you guys keep me company? I’m itching to make some _friends_.”

 

If the drugs alone hadn’t been tempting enough, the thick and obvious hint at possible gang bang sex with that red-dressed chick does the job and a minute later, Rey is discreetly handing out pills like smarties. When they are distracted knocking them down, Rey glances over to Ben, who doesn’t look like he’s moved at all since she got started and she smiles at him, a glint in her eye as his fist clutches the beer he ordered like he wants to choke it to death. With a deep-seated pleasure she should be ashamed of, she realizes that he is jealous and she keeps that in mind when she leaves the college boys behind with a distracted “There’s my friend” and proceeds to chat up her next target.

 

“You’re gonna buy me a drink,” she says to the fellow and grabs him by the arm like she knows him. He’s befuddled at first but only as long as it takes to give her a once over.

“Yes, I am,” he says and she smiles, keeping it on her face until Ben sees. He salutes her with his beer, once she has a grip on her own.

 

The benevolent buyer probably thinks the overt dance moves she lays on him are a thank you for the beer but really, it’s all just to see quite how outwardly pissed she can make Ben, rolling her ass backward into that dude’s crotch until he’s so gone, she could feed him the drugs without him knowing it. After a while of this, Ben turns away and makes the woman behind the bar laugh and shake her hair for him and Rey gets a taste of her own medicine. She half wants to jump over the bar and punch that pouty-mouthed grin off her face and doesn’t care to justify the impulse to herself, or mask it as something other than undiluted, naked jealousy.

 

She waits until Ben is done making eyes at the bar girl to switch positions with the man. Now his back is to Ben and she can look at him over the guy’s shoulder. Ben sees her dance, closer than she’d be to the other in her right mind. Still, there’s a sinking, burning sensation between her thighs that has nothing to do with the boner her dance partner is rubbing against her hip and everything to do with Ben’s vicious, heated glare. She lets this go on until the boy starts getting handsy. Only after that does she put a bit of space between them, to her other's distaste but then she couldn’t give less of a damn about him. Her mind is elsewhere because Ben tries to silently communicate by sweeping his gaze over the rest of the place. Like he’s saying “Great show, but what about the rest of them?” She wants to half murder him. The gall he has, as if he was pimping her out to these dimwits.

 

Rey tilts her head, furios, and gives the fucker at her side a line about finding her friends to push back into the crowd. She deliberately tries to slip from Ben’s view, so he has to get out there to keep his eye on her, and she repeats the dancing, waiting for the next guy to chat her up. She’s only somewhat successful in escaping his gaze because he moves down the bar and slightly into the no man’s land between those drinking and those dancing, but never actually goes into the crowd. Her pattern is easy to follow, the same trick working over and over, and some of his tension seems to ease with every guy who takes a pill from her. He stands broader, there where she can see him, taller, and his confidence transforms him, makes his features harden in the best way, his jaw square and lips sensual. He looks good, delicious even, and Rey isn’t the only one to notice, because shortly some woman with bottle blonde hair and probably too much to drink already, approaches him from the side. He glances quickly at Rey before indulging her flirting and she knows it’s just for her.

 

Rey, feeling a bit like a PEZ dispenser at this point, doesn’t enjoy being cast aside like that and her jealousy has only grown in the face of that swim suit model blonde twirling her hair and pushing her boobs in his face and so she lays it on very, very thick with the next guy she talks to, making damn sure Ben sees that she nearly lets the guy kiss her after minutes on the dancefloor with him. He’s also not half bad really, very good looking - and he at least introduced himself before dancing with her, his legs and hips swaying in an easy, expert rhythm and with beautiful brown skin that’s soft to touch.

 

***

 

_There isn’t a graceful way to disengage the blonde, who is not being at all subtle about the fact she’d let him fuck her in the bathroom if he were so inclined, but she’s so shameless and drunk, he doubts grace is necessary. Still, Kylo has had enough drinks thrown on him to last, and so he rides the line between looking flattered at her attention and waiting for her to give up and fuck off. His waiting game is almost cut short at the sight of Rey too close to some guy, looking about ready to start making out with him on the dance floor. He manages to stay where he is, knowing he shouldn’t pull her away when she looks like she’s got the situation handled, but he wants to, badly._

 

_He neglects the blonde for long enough that she finally gets annoyed and huffs away, leaving him open to watch as Rey moves, the guy trailing after her across the dance floor and then up the stairs to the mezzanine. Between the moving bodies and flashing lights, Kylo can see his hands dangerously close to Rey’s ass, and it sends him to action._

 

_He follows at a distance, but never far from them, and tries to catch Rey’s eye. She’s meant to be playing up her appeal, yes, but this is unnecessary. It’s not anything ridiculous, really, relative to everything else people could be and probably are getting up to in this club, but it feels like more. It’s like he’s watching Rey pick someone new, and it burns against the antagonism they’ve had for the past few days._

 

_Rey is standing at the bar with the same guy when Kylo finds her as he ascends the stairs, talking animatedly, and she smiles and laughs in ways that look genuine. Something in her face changes like she actually finds this guy appealing. He can see in her posture and the way she runs her hand through her hair, standing straight and slightly puffing up her chest, that she finds him more than tolerable, at the least. From what Kylo can see, she hasn’t made any move for her handbag yet, though that’s supposed to be what they’re here for._

 

_When he’s watched all that for a while and Rey hasn’t made any move to find him in the crowd, he can’t stop himself. It’s probably petty and childish, all the things he keeps accusing her of, but he makes his way to them. He doesn’t say anything to himself away, but he deliberately bumps into her, pretending to be drunk and shaky on his feet. The ‘sorry’ he gives her is a throwaway, complete with the wide grin of someone deep into their drinking, but when he’s facing her so they are looking straight at each other, Kylo’s act drops for a heartbeat to deliver a warning look. And then he goes on, parks it at the opposite end of the bar and keeps to watching out of the corner of his eye._

 

_Rey does get to business then, but doesn’t distance herself. She’s too close to the loser as she passes him one of the little pills, and then Kylo can see the exchange of phone numbers. He leans in to kiss her cheek, much too close to her mouth, and Kylo doesn’t notice the woman trying to talk to him for how distracted he is trying not to charge across the room and punch the guy in the face._

 

_“Guess you’re not having a great night,” a voice says on his left, raised to be heard, and Kylo wonders what else she’s said that he didn’t respond to. The voice belongs to a woman who could be a warped mirror image of himself, all dark hair and long limbs, made up in smoky colors. She doesn’t look like the type who thinks of giggling over bright-colored drinks and tossing her hair as a good time. Kylo can see the appeal of her, and if he weren’t so completely gone for Rey, he’d be tempted, but as it is, all he can see is a distraction. One he’s willing to use though._

 

_“I think my night just improved,” he says, smooth when it doesn’t matter. She turns down his offer of a drink, insisting on buying him one instead, and he accepts, leaning into her but more importantly away from Rey. He can’t stand to keep a close eye on whatever game she’s playing, if only because it might not be a game. The worry doesn’t go away, but he can hold it at bay with this woman shooting him loaded smiles, touching his shoulder, and letting him play into it. It keeps his frustration in check somewhat and he toys with the idea of letting her try to take his mind off it if Rey ends up trying to go home with some stranger._

 

_Two drinks in, she’s making obvious passes at him when her tone changes, eyes glinting as she asks how he feels about a little pick me up. For a moment he doesn’t catch on, but then she sneaks a tiny bag out of her purse, only about a gram of white powder if his estimate is right, and it usually is. It sits on the bartop between them, a small white spot in the dark lighting of the club, framed by her fingertips, almost innocent. Kylo stares at it for too long._

 

_He’s about to pass a year sober and the temptation has never been stronger to throw that out the window. It’s right there, waiting for him to just reach for it, and Rey hasn’t been paying attention to him since she found the fucker she’s off with, so no one’s there to stop him, no one but himself._

 

_He’s almost going to do it, too, has his hand reached out to take her offer - and it wouldn’t be so bad, half a gram is nothing if she wants to split it, he could come back from that - but the memory of sweating and shaking in his bathtub comes roaring back to mind, along with the sound of Rey’s labored breathing when he’d told her about getting sober, and the image of her face in sleep, moments away from letting him have everything he’d wanted, and he still doesn’t know what happened to destroy things between them, but he’ll never find out if he lets himself fall like this. So he pulls back his hand, ignoring the way it trembles._

 

_It says something about how shaken he is at the offer that Kylo doesn’t notice Rey until she’s right there, getting up in the woman’s face, an enraged look on her own as she snaps, “You need to leave.”_

 

_She’s clearly taken aback, this woman who’s suddenly being shouted down by a girl four inches shorter than her appearing from nowhere. She composes herself though, settling into the haughty look of someone who thinks they’re going to come out the winner. Kylo almost has the presence of mind to feel bad for her._

 

_“You need to mind your own business, little girl,” she shoots back. It could be because he knows her so well, but Kylo thinks it fairly obvious Rey is barely holding herself back from lashing out. It’s an oddly warming turn of events, watching the vein in her forehead pulse from the strain of not getting into an actual cat fight. He could flatter himself that he’s actually managed to make her jealous like she’s been doing to him all night._

 

_“I’m gonna say this just once, so you better listen if you know what’s good for you.” There’s a crackling undercurrent of threat in her voice, her posture shouting authority that must have been trained into her. He’d be lying to himself if he said it didn’t get him going to see her like that. “Keep your paws off my man and take that shit with you or you’ll regret it, bitch.”_

 

 _And just like that, his mild arousal trips over itself and lands on his heart pounding in his chest. Her man, huh? The low-key attraction is always there, but it skyrockets with her claim on him. Defensive and angry, she may not mean it exactly as she’s said it, but he can’t unhear Rey telling some other woman he’s_ hers _like it’s real._

 

 _“He sure didn’t seem taken,” the dark-haired woman sneers, an ugly look of rejection on her face. She stands though, taking that little bag with her, Rey popping off, “Well, he_ is _,” like it’s the most certain thing, end of story. She still lets him know her offer’s on the table as she goes, but Kylo has already almost forgotten she existed in the whirlwind of Rey’s anger._

_“If I see you near him again, I’ll fucking break your face,” she shouts, whipping around to turn on him a second later. “What the fuck are you doing?!”_

 

 _“Nothing.” The warm feelings of satisfaction evaporate somewhat with her turning her anger on him and rattled, he stutters, of all things. “M-my job. What are_ you _doing?”_

_It’s a fair question, he thinks. She’s been fucking around with the same walking bag of hormones for far too long. So what if he’d done the same? It wasn’t like she’d looked like she cared all that much._

 

_“Watching you almost doing lines with some discount Booberella,” she hisses, almost lost in the music surrounding them, but she’s too close to him for it to escape. “What is wrong with you? You’re done with that shit.”_

_Perhaps anger was an understatement. Rey’s almost shaking she’s so pissed, and it puts him on the defensive. He’s so tired of fighting with her, so tired of being wrong all the time, and here she is, making assumptions that he was going to fuck up again._

 

_“I was going to tell her no, alright?” It comes out stubborn and somewhat frayed, and he fiddles with his drink to give himself something to do, like it’ll ground him somehow. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not that weak. It’s just -” He searches for the word, and when he finds it, it isn’t just for the drugs. “- tempting. When it’s right there.”_

 

_Rey’s not stupid, though there are moments when he wishes she were, so that maybe she wouldn’t pick up on his double meaning quite so fast. It’d be nice to have one up on her every once in a blue moon, just so he can have a breath to get his head on straight. She’s right there with him when she responds. “So you’re just gonna throw away everything you’ve been through to get here?”_

_“Didn’t I just tell you no? I can’t make you believe me, but nothing was going to happen.”_

 

_“It better not,” Rey demands. “If I see you even close to using again, I will fucking punch you.” Which is a laugh, because she’s meant to leave, isn’t she? She won’t be around to keep an eye on him forever, and who does she think she is that she can just dictate his life like this? It boils over, the push and pull they’ve kept going, the way she keeps edging in on things he shouldn’t want and won’t be offered, the distance she keeps making and breaking like it doesn’t break him too._

 

 _“I don’t_ want _to, but you have to give me_ something _.” He’d meant to be angry with her, really, but all he can seem to do is offer her broken pieces and hopes she takes some of them. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, knowing there’s only two things I really want in this world, and here both of them are, right in front of me, and I can’t have either one.”_

 

_It’s gratifying, knowing she’s not completely unaffected by that, troubled as she gets out, “I’m not trying to...hurt you.”_

_“That why you had those frat boys jizzing in their pants, to_ not hurt _me?” he mutters into his drink, resentful. He downs it before going on, facing her fully. “I don’t know what happened, and frankly, I don’t care, but this was working just fine, and now it’s fucked up, and you’re the one who did that, Rey. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s fucking true, and I’m not going to be the one lying to you.”_

 

 _“You’re no_ better _,” she says, squirming, deflecting like always, throwing her hands up like_ he’s _the frustrating one. “I wasn’t prepared for any of this, for fuck’s sake.”_

 _“Yeah, well, I thought I was, and look where that got me.” Prepared is bullshit, a made-up notion to help people feel like they have control over their lives, when all it is is this: fighting for the things you want and living with the things you have to. “I’ve been nothing but upfront with you, and you just keep toying with me and throwing it in my face when I’m not_ exactly _what you want me to be, and then coming back anyway. So be a fucking grownup, Rey, and make up your damn mind.”_

 

_There isn’t much space between them at the bar as it is, not when the floor is packed like this, but Rey moves like she’s ready to get really in his face. It’s a dangerous proximity for both of them. Crackling with the things she won’t say._

 

 _“Just try to put yourself in my shoes! I’ve fucking broken more laws than I can count for you! If I did what I wanted, I’d break a couple hundred more.” He doesn’t quite know what to do with that, what she’s saying, but she doesn’t stop so he doesn’t dwell on it. “I know I can’t go back, but I’m fucking losing my mind being around you all the time. I wanna run half the time but I’ve got_ nowhere _to go.”_

 

 _“You’re torturing both of us is what you’re doing.” Kylo won’t touch the idea of her leaving, he can’t, because of course she could go. She could tell her handlers she’s been made and run back to the feds with maybe some disappointment, but she could do it. If she won’t think of it though, he won’t be the one to tell her. “If you can’t go back, all there_ is _is forward, but you won’t do it. Whatever you have to break to do what you want to do, I’ll take care of it, but this is pointless. You’re drawing lines in the sand that don’t fucking matter and making a big deal out of what should be the simplest thing. We’ve got bigger issues than whether or not you can stand to let me in your panties, and all you’re doing is making it worse.”_

 

_It should be simple, plain, no strings if that’s what she wants, but it isn’t. It’s never been just sex between them. He’ll take her at her words though until she admits that. The only way she’ll see reason is if she puzzles it out herself, not on his assumptions of what she really wants, beneath all the good-cop morality she’s wearing like armour._

_“Fuck you, Ben.” And the smart response,_ if only _, is on his tongue, only stopped by her going on. “You know as well as me that it’s not that simple. Nothing about this is_ simple _.”_

 

_She’s so close he could scream, but she won’t say what they both need to hear, just parrot him to tell him he’s wrong. “Admitting it’s the first step,” he says, dry as a bone. “Trust me, I’ve been there. You won’t do that though, will you? You’ll just dance around it like you always do.” Her allusions and maybes and halfway acceptance can go fuck themselves. Kylo is uncertain enough as it is, he can’t act on implications and call it good enough. “We were supposed to be able to trust each other, going into this, and I can’t even trust you to be honest about this.”_

_“You know how I feel,” she says, struggling with it. He doesn’t. How could he? She changes her damn mind every time they get horizontal, and at any time of the day besides that as well. “I’d have...I waited for you to…”_

 

 _“You waited for an illusion,” he says, sharp and torn from him. There’s nothing at the end of her sentence but the man she thought he’d be, not who he is. “You waited for a memory, and when you got the real thing, it wasn’t good enough. I’m right here.” Waiting for Rey to make up her mind. “The fucking real thing’s standing right here in front of you, and you won’t take it because it’s not perfect. Well, news flash,_ nothing _is.”_

 

_“That’s not fair.” It’s a short response, but somehow her tone warps through it, deeply sad and just as frustrated, and Kylo almost feels like there’s something he’s missing. There’s something she won’t say, as always, and as much as he can read her body language and see the turmoil written clearly in her eyes, he can’t understand what it is. God, if only he could, maybe he’d know what he’s supposed to do._

 

_“Life’s not fair.” He’s getting worked up, making the people around them nervous with their hissed argument and his rigid shoulders, but he can’t stop himself. “And you know what else isn’t fair? Thinking you have something worth maybe living for and having it shit all over you. Looking at you, little officer, lying to yourself. It’s not fair that we ended up like this, and it’s not fair that it doesn’t matter that we did. That all I want when I look at you is to kiss you, every second of every day, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop that.”_

 

 _“Then why don’t you try to change my mind?” She says it hushed and desperate, like she wants him to, stepping closer and all but begging for him to close the scant distance and_ make _her. “Why do you let me get away with all the shit I’m doing to you?”_

 

_She must know she’s insane, doesn’t make any sense, wanting him to be the kind of man who would just take what he wants, but then telling him she can’t be with someone like that. She has to know she’s torturing him in the strangest way, eyes alight like she can’t wait for him to corrupt her. If anyone could manage to go after the sinner and the saint at the same time, it would be Rey, who can’t seem to decide, wants everything at once, and damn him, he wants to give it to her._

 

_“Why do you think I let you get away with it?” She can deal with him sidestepping the issue for once. It’s obvious anyway, but he can’t say it, can hardly stand to feel it. “Why would I possibly let you do every damn thing you want to me?”_

 

_Rey’s hand fists in the sleeve of his jacket, all but clawing at him, like the touch doubles back his own conflict on her. “I feel like I’m burning alive,” she says on the tail end of a groan, her face twisted in what could be agony, and it should be a line, cheesy and dramatic, but it isn’t. “I don’t know what to do.”_

 

 _“Easy,” he says, watching her ablaze. It should be_ so _easy. There’s only two ways to go forward. “You can burn alone or you can burn with me.” That’s it. They can be together in this, the mess they’ve made of their lives, or they can suffer in solitude. Never touching, but always within tantalizing reach, the moon gravitating to the earth._

 

_“God fucking dammit.” The huff of her breath crosses his throat and he can’t help but follow when she darts away to the balcony, stepping in behind her, close without touching._

 

_“What do you want me to do?” she asks him sincerely, sounding young and overwhelmed, like she actually wants him to tell her._

_He brackets her in at that, hands on the railing in front of them, so any move she makes will end in their collision. It’s a good thing Rey has done her job well, he thinks distantly, because there’s no coming back from this moment. Neither of them can drop back into the parts they’re meant to play tonight. Kylo isn’t even sure he can be himself right now. Or perhaps that’s the problem. He can’t keep playing at being honorable to the core, not when his true colors run red and black. What does he want her to do? Or rather, what does_ she _want him to want her to do? That’s been the question all night, hasn’t it? He thinks he knows the answer, deep in his bones, and there is no escape._

 

 _“I want you to let me end this.” It’s no more than a rumble against her temple, his head so close to hers barely a hair could pass between them and once he says it, he knows it’s true. “I want you to say_ yes _.”_

_“Ben.” That’s not a yes, but it has all the cadence of one, breathless and lightheaded. She can’t give him that, and the knowledge splits him in two. She’ll still have it of him, of course, always, and he’ll stand helpless in her wake, always. He might make the move, because he can’t hold his body together anymore, but he’s doing her bidding all the same._

 

_He takes the fateful step forward, pressing flush against her back and ass and she gives just the slightest, unconscious pressure back in response, her body heaving against his in a sharp inhale that goes straight to his own head. The crowd beneath them is thumping, dancing to a booming base and no one pays attention to just another couple on the gallery, unaware of how the world is shifting above them. He has no idea what will happen next but as fragile as it is, the moment feels like it has infinite potential, it’s one of the more terrifying things he’s had to go through. He wonders if this is it, if this is how he dies - not on the other end of a gun, but here with everything in his arms and no control over it._

 

 _“No, don’t,” she breathes heavily when he bends forward, reaching around her body with his long arm, on blind, fumbling instinct, letting it trail from her thigh to her hips and then_ in _. “I didn’t mean in here.”_

 _“Stop me,” he whispers against her the crook of her neck and he is ready to step aside if she only so much as nudges him away but of course she doesn’t. This is still the girl that loved every minute of what they did the night before so much she fucked herself to it, still the girl who wants him so much she’s going through panties like tea-bags. It’s the girl who asked him to change her mind just moments ago and god help him, he_ will _._

 

_So in earnest, their audience isn’t a real, tangible concern at this point. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, only that the surge under his skin begs to touch her, drag the truth out of her here at last. At any rate, he is in no position to stop himself. She arches into him as he pulls her closer, rising against her with his nose tracing her neck up to her temple. The breath she takes is deep and resonates like a shiver against his frame. And just like that they’re both lost._

 

_He keeps her where she is with his mouth to her ear, whispers her name while he retracts his arms, tilting his hips backward so he has some room to work his zipper down, almost on autopilot. It isn’t a conscious decision at all anymore. They’re in a club. Packed with people. In fucking public. But whatever sensibility he has dissipates in face of how she contradicts her own words of restraint, rolling her ass backwards against his throbbing, ridiculously pounding erection. She doesn’t give a shit that they’re not alone, not really. As for him, he barely notices anything past the immediate radius of their proximity. There’s only her._

 

_“You know you can take whatever you want, Rey,” he tries for an even voice but it’s a laughable attempt at best; it sounds more like he’s choking on air._

_“Ben,” she says weakly, voice low and just as strangled as she squirms in what she must realise is her last chance to back out. “We shouldn’t.”_

_“Why?” he asks, fumbling his briefs down through the small opening in the front of his pants in an entirely undignified way._

_He doesn’t care much if anyone sees exactly what he is doing but as it is, it’s dark and busy so he doubts anyone will catch him freeing his length from the restrictive fabric._

_“It’ll kill us,” she winces but her head cranes against his, granting him more access to her skin. “You know that.”_

_She’s right of course. Obviously. Beneath the simplicity of two bodies working together, he knows this will very likely ruin them. He should run for the bathroom like he had the night before, take care of what his body near well breaks open for and spare them everything that will come with taking that step, breaching this ridge in their worlds that has opened up between them long ago._

 

Fuck it. Fuck all of it to hell.

 

 _“I don’t care,” he buries his face hungrily in the dip of her neck and inhales her perfume, letting it cloud his senses along with what’s left of his judgement while hiking up her dress clumsily and pushing her thong out of the way. She wants him to take action, to take matters into his own hands? Fine, he can do that. “I_ need _you.”_

 

_In the back of his head, he knows doing anything where they’re standing isn’t right. That it’s messy and obscene instead of meaningful and special as it should be but then again he has never claimed to be a nice guy. Charming, yes, respectful too but not nice, plus used to getting instant gratification and he is so past patiently waiting at this point, it’s almost a feat how he’s managing not to rip her clothes off like some savage beast._

 

 _Still, if he was nice, he would take her home and have her in his bed but it’s far too late for chivalry or rationality now that she is his for the unraveling. There is also the numbing fear that as soon as the ravenous, pure sexual energy of the moment could dissipate from loss of contact, she will revert back to_ no _and he’ll have lost her. Yes, he can have her_ now _and screw the fucking waiting game and she roundabout told him she wants this anyway. Still, if he was nice, he’d push down the dull vindictiveness that gnaws at him for that. The tension of the past weeks coiled him into a wild sort of frenzy and a petty part of him wants to get back at her yet, to make her see just what she did to him, to have her shiver with need from how bad she wants him. He is not nice. Not right now, anyway._

 

 _Her breath catches when he leans forward again and his cock connects with her bare skin --_ and fucking hell _, he can’t think straight._

_“Say you don’t want this,” he beckons her, wedging his dick in the cleft of her ass which ridiculously causes more tension that relief. “Say, ugh, say it now, or to hell with it, we’re doing this.”_

 

_“Fuck,” she groans and shifts so he can move further in. Her skin is flush and drenched for him like her soaked panties, wet to his touch, already suggested and he could be inside just like that, with just the faintest thrust of his hips._

 

 _“Say it,” he mutters, a plea more than anything else, forcing his body to halt, holding himself back under the greatest strain he has ever had to put on himself. He’s not asking her to repeat her ‘_ not in here’ _\- screw propriety and to hell with decency - he wants her clear-cut consent now, that last step she has refused to take so she can’t hide behind having left it open for interpretation if she regrets it later. Like she very well might. But should that happen and he’ll have to suffer it, she won’t have the out of saying she hadn’t given him every bit of her freely. “I need to hear it and you need to say it.”_

 

_“I...want you,” she finally says almost spitefully, almost like she is telling him where to shove it but he isn’t satisfied yet. “You know I do.”_

_“Yeah?” he says and pushes further, just a little bit, enough to touch the tip of him against her nerve-endings, seizing the opportunity for all it’s worth and for once_ he’s _being a bit of a tease about it too, because he can. And because he wants to drink in her voice as it carries over the music, hot and bothered and searing._

 

_“Yes,” she groans, “fucking hell, Ben.”_

_“Say it,” he repeats. “Tell me what you want.”_

_“Fuck,” she grits out and then thrusts her ass upward so he slips in further, just so, “_ me _.”_

 

_This is all he needs, all he’ll ever need for the rest of his sorry life, and he makes very swift work of aligning himself, ruinously savouring the moment he glides into her in what is almost a religious experience, a homecoming of the sweetest sort. The world falls away and leaves only the two of them. It scatters his brain into pieces and he almost comes apart instantly. He composes himself with more willpower than cooperation from his jerky limbs. This shouldn’t happen here, he still knows it dimly but he is gone, obliterated in the face of how she feels around him._

 

 _Once he’s as far in as the angle and circumstance allows, he removes his hand to adjust his jacket with blind fingers so it falls around their bodies, obstructing the side-view of what they’re doing. Thanks to the damned logistics of it all though, he has to move slow, skin to skin and each thrust a deliberate affair and it’s taking everything he has to keep his self-control from slipping. Rey bucks into him, not helping with this one bit and when she bends forward to allow for a better angle, he groans,_ loudly _._

 

_Bent like that, he can feel where the strap of the holster around her thigh brushes his skin, and something about it twists him up further. It’s a testament to the thin line they’re walking, that brush of danger, and all it takes is a few flicks of his fingers and the knife falls from her thigh, dropping into his hand neatly. He pockets it and runs his fingers along the slight indent there, where he can feel the smooth skin of her thigh. He’s tempted to push his hand forward, play with her clit and make her come even with the angle he can’t quite get right. But he can’t work his hand under her dress without anyone who catches sight of them knowing they’re having sex right there in the midst of everybody, so he keeps it where it is._

 

 _“Jesus fucking_ Christ _,” she pants quietly, sounding short of breath and frenzied and Kylo is relatively sure the saint she calls to has no place in any of this._

_“Look at me,” he gulps, raspy and desperate, grabs her around the middle to draw her against him again and tries to kiss her temple but failing to even round his lips._

 

 _He wants her eyes on him, wants his to say what his mouth is too useless to. She feels so amazing, slick with want and_ tight _, so fucking tight, he can barely keep on his feet. He wants to worship her the way she deserves, the way they both know only he can, but is limited to just marginally,_ pathetically _thrusting back and forth. It’s not enough, never enough, and he can’t very well twist her around and fuck her out in the open like he might want to._

 

_She turns her head further so she can look him in the eye like he asked and he stares into glazed over, darkened orbs, as if he could penetrate her soul as well. This connection adds another layer of depth, surpassing the physical one which seems outrageous considering and it shoots into his very bones. He could laugh, if his face wasn’t taken over by mindless desire, because they are fucking in a nightclub surrounded by people and now that they found each other’s eyes, it’s special and meaningful anyway._

 

It’s all for you _,_ it’s you _,_ it’s you _, he thinks,_ you’re everything _._

 _“Fuck,” he jerks against her, scrambling for more and fumes when he can’t get it. This just won’t do. “We’re getting out of here_ now _.”_

 

_***_

 

Ben does all the work of breaking them apart, pulling out and simultaneously putting her underwear and dress back in place and Rey knows she wouldn’t have had the strength to. She would have met his small thrusts, frozen to her spot until she came to some throwaway electro-beat and he would’ve needed to half carry her out all the same.

 

As it is, the sudden absence of him seems almost like an offence but it helps clear her head a bit. She watches him fumble with his zipper, stepping closer to him to conceal at least a bit of the view to bystanders and then looks up at his face, twisted in concentration.

 

She could tell him right now that it’s wrong what they’re doing - even if it feels right in a way nothing else has in a year. She could tell him she changed her mind again, like she should - even if she hasn’t. It isn’t really a question of consent, this whole thing. He knows she wants him, all day, every day, but he was so hellbent on having her acknowledge it, saying it out loud, not letting her bullshit her way out of it anymore and somehow, she is almost grateful. It feels good not to delude herself into thinking she could’ve fought this. Whatever they are, it’s stronger than both of them and there is lightness in giving into it. They are what they are still, nothing about that has changed but admitting to what she wants despite all of it, has changed _her_.

 

When they left his apartment, she’d known what she had to do but since then and now, things had blurred and shifted. The thing is that when she looks at him, and really lets herself _look_ and takes him as he is, not just in the immediate, very recent sense but all of him, it’s all suddenly very straightforward. If she doesn’t _think_ , she _knows._ She doesn’t want what she wanted when they left, which was for the longing to stop. Now that she doesn’t think, she knows what she wants is what they did. And more of it. There’s a reason for that, simple and obvious, as old as time. For all the bad things he’s done, for all the pain they caused each other, that reason hasn’t changed one bit in the year without him.

 

She loves him. Hopelessly and entirely and she’d never felt both the weight and levitity of loving someone so strongly before. It’s like half of her heart is his, a physical pull in her chest that belongs somewhere else, outside of her own body. Even if she had loved Finn in her way, he never had all of her because truly, she was already taken before they even began and as much as she should stay away now and as much as loving Ben is already destroying what life she’s built for herself, trying to talk herself out of it has only made her yearn for him more. They are destined, it seems, to crash and burn, with an abyss right in front of them, a bottomless pit that she still keeps running and running toward. It is what it is. And it’s not gonna change, none of it.

 

If she were inclined to, this very second, to think about what Finn would say to her if he knew what she was doing, it might give her pause but wouldn’t be enough to stop. Finn was always wonderful to her and evidently, he is much too good for her anyway. From the beginning of their relationship, brought on by his kindness and persistence, to the end of it, sitting him down on her bed and telling him she will have to leave and can’t keep any ties, he’s been patient, lovely and understanding of everything. But he wouldn’t understand this. Which is no feat since she hardly understands it herself. She won’t even start to ponder what this will do to her career, or her whole life really, because if she did, she’d have to remain steadfast and resolute about never ever going there again. But how can she, when he is right there in front of her, ready to touch, ready to love? Pressing his lips together as he finishes dusting himself off in a way that makes her arousal a near painful thing.

 

Then finally, Ben catches her eye, breaking her out of her thoughts. His face is hard and blazing when she takes his hand, set on her path now, and they start walking together.

Before they’re at the stairs, someone yanks Rey back at her arm and she spins to find one of the frat boys from her earlier engagement - his pupils look like vinyl records and it’s obvious he’s smacked out of his head.

“Geez, girl, you’re leaving with that sight gag, you serious?!” He motions towards them in a very unwise manner and she has to grip Ben’s hand tight to keep him from jumping at the dude.

“Damn right, I am,” she says before someone ends up dead. “And I’m gonna fuck him six ways to sunday, asshole. Now, piss off.”

 

Before either of the men can say another word, she pulls Ben on, down the stairs across the floor and her legs feel wobbly, her core trembling with unmet need for release. He tries to keep up with her but doesn’t struggle much. Only then, pushing the run-in with the jerk far from her mind, does she realize she’s been too riled up to even think of protection and she makes a mental note to tell Ben so before they pick things up again.

 

They’re almost out when a suit pushes into their way and she looks up to find Hux grinning at them, smug and condescending.

“You could always convince that Maz to let you into the broom closet if you have such a hard time controlling yourself,” he trumpets at Ben over the music.

“Get out of my way, Hux,” he hisses back. “I have zero patience for you right now.”

“I saw,” Hux chuckles. “Didn’t think you had it in you but I must say I dig the exhibitionist streak. Almost like you’re actually a _man_.”

“I know _that_ gets you off Hux,” Ben says, levelly. “But I think I made it abundantly clear that neither of us are here for you.”

 

Rey thinks this must be an uninspired questioning of Hux’s sexuality, insinuating he also goes for men but there is something in the ginger’s features that suggests there is more truth than taunt to Ben’s words. When he lets them pass after another snicker and the valet leaves to collect the car, she asks Ben about it.

“He’s into anything that moves and submits to him,” Ben says with a shrug. “He usually goes for girls because they are easier to control but he’s really not picky.”

 

“Do you really think he wants to... _sleep_ with you?” Rey asks him in a strange mix of apprehension and bewilderment. Somehow Hux’s whole attitude towards him and them together would make a lot more sense if he did.

“I don’t know,” Ben grits out and pinches the bridge of his nose. “And I really don’t want to think about that right now.”

 

And to make his point, he steps in, pulling her against his body and she can feel him still hard, pressing against her stomach.

“I’d rather talk about you - what was it? - _fucking me six ways to sunday_?” he mutters and dips his head down. Still, before he can kiss her, the valet returns, clearing his throat and Ben snaps around, glowering at him for intruding but takes the keys without a word anyway. He goes to open the car door for Rey, careful to keep his jacket concealing his erection. It’s a little endearing, watching him be both slightly humiliated, overworked Ben and intimidating, no-time-for-your-shit Kylo Ren at once.

 

There’s no trace of the latter once they’re in the car though and he speeds them off, away from the club and out of Manhattan. Actually, there isn’t much of a trace of his whole abrasive act from the last couple of days. He’s driving quietly, tense but not in an aggressive way, more like he doesn’t trust neither his limbs nor her decision yet, waiting with baited breath as if he’s bracing himself for her changing her mind still. But she isn’t going to and to make that point, Rey puts her hand on his thigh at the first traffic light, meaning to go upward.

 

“Don’t,” he breathes instantly, like a shot. “You can’t touch me right now. I’ll run us off the road.”

So she stays where she is, squirming. There is little commotion on the nightly streets once they’re out of mid-town but it’s still taking too long. If it’s at all possible, she only gets wetter, hungrier, and she could scream that she doesn’t even get to reach for him to alleviate some of the tension. Even so, he was probably right to stop her, the way he is glaring into the street before him, knuckles going white under his death-grip on the wheel. He looks like he is barely holding on to his sanity and he drives much, much faster than is legal or she would usually be comfortable with. As it is, she shares and appreciates his haste.

 

“I’ve got an implant,” she says then, opting to get the practical aspect of protection out of the way while she still has somewhat of a grip on herself.

“I know,” he says through a clenched jaw, all tight control in a suit. “I’m still clean.”

“Me too,” she says. During their little fling they’d both been recently attested stellar sexual health, even with Ben’s physical one back then obviously in a less pristine state. Still, it’s good to know nothing has changed in the first department in the year apart.

 

“Do you want me to get condoms anyway?” he asks her, hand already hovering over the stick to gear down and take an exit somewhere to a 24/7 store.

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “Just drive.”

Neither of them minds condoms and were Rey any less certain that her implant works - and it does, she’s been happily period-free for the last two years - she would ask him to wear one but as it is, she feels pretty confident sparing them both the time. It’s not much in any case but the way they’re both breathing like they’re running a marathon, any delay of acting on this headless tension is too much.

 

Ben doesn’t bother driving into the garage, he just parks the car outside of his building and she doesn’t wait for him to open her door. She just lunges ahead, making for the entrance and she knows he’ll keep step with his enormous legs. After he has let them in, they both half run to the elevator and the doors haven’t shut when she pushes him against the rusty metal of its back wall.

 

His arms close around her frame immediately and he lets her rip at his clothes when she pulls him down to her face. Making out with him has briefly been her second favorite thing in the world but at first their mouths can’t live up to the very colorful memories. It’s messy and hungry, his nose poking her eye more than once, teeth clashing, both of them equally rabid and greedy but when Ben takes the reins and lifts her easily, hands on her ass and yanking her up so she can wrap her legs around his hips, they refine their forms. He holds her there like she weighs nothing and when the elevator pings open, he carries her with just as little effort to his door. He’s smiling against her mouth as he carries her, maybe starting to believe that this is actually happening.

 

Rey barely notices any of this. She is preoccupied with kissing his head, leaning back to nibble at his neck as he fiddles with the keys. He breathes hard, staggering and nearly drops them. “Gimme a second,” he all but begs, pressing his forehead into her shoulder, just inhaling and exhaling, deeply, in and out, while the one arm he uses to support all her weight draws her in closer for purchase. Dutifully, she halts her affections and he manages to wiggle the door open at last.

 

“Put me down,” she says once they’re inside and he reluctantly obliges. He would’ve kissed her senseless just where she’d sat on his hips, she knows, but she has no patience for that right now. Instead, she steps out of her high heels, throws down the handbag she’s carried over her shoulder for the better part of the evening, rips the dress off her head, and drops her useless panties right next to her shoes.

 

This is possibly the fastest she’s ever gotten completely naked. He looks at her a bit gobsmacked, like he can’t really believe it yet. Still, he catches himself quickly, shrugs his jacket off his shoulders, kicks the expensive Italian shoes off his feet and comes at her faster than she anticipated. Next thing she knows, he already has her elevated, by the hips this time, so she is technically still standing, only that he’s carrying her. She grabs his face in response, trailing kisses up and down his temple and then moves on to tuck the hair she can reach behind his right ear.

 

He growls and she doesn’t know exactly if it’s in displeasure or quite the opposite. She doesn’t care, she’s missed his ears and she wants them and he can cry about it later if he minds. She goes straight for his earlobes, nibbles, licks and bites and his grip on her tightens. It’s a funny feeling, her bare skin pressed against the fine linen of his dress pants and shirt but he seems in no great hurry to undress himself. Instead he plucks her from his neck and puts her gently on the bed so she sits and as he steps away from her ever so slightly, she catches the glint in his eye that tells her all about his next move. He doesn’t need to be naked for what he is going to do.

 

Swiftly, he falls to his knees and shuffles closer until he can wedge her knees apart with his broad shoulders. He peeks up at her, underneath brows furrowed with intensity.

“Can I?” he asks although his voice is so low, it barely carries. Rey can only nod breathlessly in anticipation before he ducks in between her legs.

 

 _Fuck_ , she’s forgotten how his nose bumps against her flesh when he puts his mouth on her. She’s also forgotten how quickly that alone sends her spiraling. Not to speak of the way he uses his tongue to flick and test around and before long, she can’t decipher what exactly he does down there, knowing only that it’s warm and soft and _fucking amazing_. He grabs her left leg by the ankle and props it on his shoulder, leaning in more, with his free hand pulling her against his face by the hip. Bonelessly, Rey arches into him, her hand falling onto his head to grab his hair and reinforce the faster pace he is going for now. She pants and moans and thinks letting him do this to her might be the best decision she has made in a while. Touching herself these past few days hasn’t even come close to how it feels when he does and she wonders how she even lasted so long without him. How she slept next to him, knowing this is how he could make her feel. Like the universe is collapsing in on itself and he is at the center of it all.

 

He hums and growls in turn, making her walls vibrate with the sound.

“Ben,” she winces her approval and bucks into his face desperately. He laughs, muffled by her skin and works his tongue into her with skill and experience. “Oh god, _fuck_.”

He withdraws his hand from her ankle to use his fingers for assistance, spreading her open, finding every last spot he hasn’t lavished with attention yet while his fingers dance over her clit like he’s got a treasure map and he knows _exactly_ where to go.

 

“Shit, I’m gonna…” she trails off, almost already over the edge.

“Rey,” he murmurs against her flesh and leans in for one last caress, lips, tongue and fingers going in for the kill and she dies, engulfed in flames, with a whimper, shakes violently and comes back to life with his name on her lips, split open as she cries out. When she’s already coming, he keeps at it, slightly twisting his wrist, getting a different angle both inside her trembling heat and on her twitching skin, so that it lasts even longer, doubles in on itself and her eyes roll back into her soul like she just might pass out.

 

Dimly, through the orgasm that is slow to wear off, she feels him pull his fingers out past her body’s very own resistance. It’s not conscious but she’s clutching him there all the same. Once he’s free, he wipes his digits on his pants and it’s a little bit gross and a little bit cute. He looks deeply pleased, the fact that he made her come giving enough indication that he’s in it for the long run tonight and he won’t let her return the favor for a while. He’ll wanna last. He wants _this_ to last. To say she is delighted would not cover half of it.

 

A year ago, the nights they’d spent together were long, drawn out affairs of re-dos and second and third rounds and he always kept up with her well. Even if she always could’ve gone for more and he did have his physical limitations after climaxing twice, he’d never left her unsatisfied. She finds his eyes now, still kneeling before her and he smoothes over the skin on her legs with lazy hands, kissing the inside of her thigh soft like a feather’s touch and she’s all set to keep going. Just like that. He must know it, because he flashes her a wide, confident smile.

 

“That was,” she starts but has to catch her breath to go on, “a good start.”

Her heartbeat booms through her and both of them know ‘good’ is a crass understatement.

“Yeah?” he asks anyway and gives her his very own brand of puppy dog eyes which she responds to with gentle pressure of her foot on his shoulder, softly kicking him away.

“Now, will you take those clothes off or what?” she says, bending forward to touch him but he jumps to his feet, getting out of reach.

“I don’t know,” he says as innocent as he can possibly manage, like an asshole. “I’m just so nervous.” He could try to play off the way he’s shaking as nerves, but it’s all pent up energy released, his eyes frantic and wide and greedy.

 

“Full of shit is what you are,” she deadpans and stands up.

If he wants to play it like that, she’s game. She steps up to him, her feet protesting the weight to carry but she remains stubborn and lifts her hands to his collar. He watches her quietly and barely in control as she unbuttons his shirt but his breaths are shallow, dotted with interruptions and his hands are balled into fists at his side. Once she’s got them all loose, it takes a bit of effort to roll the stiff fabric off his arms, especially because she tries to touch as much skin as she can before she gets it off and discards it to the floor. His white undershirt is next and he gasps and shudders when she gathers it from under his belt and pants. She catches his eye just before she pulls it off his head and he has to help, to bend his knees because she is too small to reach over him, even on her tiptoes.

 

When he stands, he breaks the slow undressing by wrapping those glorious arms around her once more and any faint taste of herself she might’ve found on his lips is gone. He pushes his tongue into her mouth and she revels in his urgency. It’s the only thing that tells of it right now, because he stands calmly collected and firm against her, like he’s poured everything into their kiss and somehow left behind his own body. He is still kissing her when she starts to mess with his belt buckle because she is getting antsy, turned on and out of her mind as she is. She’s not tried those happy pills she fed to people at the club today herself, but she thinks the level of excitement and exhilaration they kick off, can’t be that far from what she’s feeling right now. It runs hot from her head into every single toe and pools in her groin, shooting down and there’s an ache inside where she suddenly feels empty without him.

 

“Impatient?” He chuckles against her lips and moves on to sweep his tongue along her jaw, nibbling and sucking wherever he feels like lingering. She has a pretty good idea that he lives for this moment. And maybe he wants to get back at her for all the teasing, all the near misses by making her wait for it a little longer but she’s not having it.

“Bite me,” she hisses and has arrived at his button and zipper. It’s a testament to her own self-control that she doesn’t rip it open.

 

“I can do that,” he says when she gives his pants a push down and they fall easily. Glancing down between them, she shivers in anticipation, while he is occupied sucking and biting the skin beneath her left earlobe raw, his stubble sure to leave her with a mean beard burn and likely bruising from his mouth. His briefs are going to be a bit harder to get off, stretched as they are over his erect length. She tries to be smooth about it but trembles and he gives a stifled hiss of pain when she yanks too hard and his cock bounces free almost spitefully.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’ll make it up to you.”

 

As the first muscle responds to her brain’s command of _bend_ , he’s already stopped her, hands palming her waist and neck as he steps out of his underwear.

 

“No,” he says and kisses her cheek gently, finding her eyes after and his features are soft and kind. “I won’t last if you do that.”

“We’ve got time,” she says, a little irritated with him. She wants him in her mouth and she doesn’t mind one bit if he comes.

“Exactly,” he says and then returns to his earlier spot beneath her ear to whisper. “I want to be inside you the first time.” Her breath stalls.

 

 _Fine_ , she can live with that order of events just as well and she means to tell him as much, all sultry and sexy, but the only thing she gets out is a shaky “Okay” that sounds like she might be dying.

He hums in reply, smiling, and then she’s suspended in the air again, wrapped around him and he somehow manages to carry her back to the bed and pry his socks of his feet with his own toes at the same time, because he’s not wearing them when he climbs into bed with her. It’s a nice touch that he remembers her ‘absolutely no socks during sex’ rule.

 

She nods to his feet in approval and he makes a face.

“Do you think I’d forget?” he asks. “You nearly bludgeoned me with your bedside lamp the last time I left them on.”

“That’s a ridiculous over-dramatization,” she quips, eyebrows raised as she shifts backward and he follows on his knees, keeping between her legs and she rambles because now her nerves kick in, of all times. “I think your memory might be failing you. I wouldn’t dare attack you before you make sweet, sweet love to me. Socks or no.”

“You’re very mouthy all of the sudden,” he says, halting, narrowing his eyes at her and tilts his head. “Second thoughts?”

Beneath his good humor there is genuine concern bordering on raw fear.

“No,” she says firmly and locks her gaze on his. “I want this.”

 

He studies her, something searing in his eyes, something like pride and elation that could burn away her very heart and she swallows, drops her eyes and breathes. He might be on the cusp of saying something she can’t unhear, that she wants too much but can’t handle right now.

 

“You said something about coming inside me?” she says before he can utter another word and he snorts but then switches right back to sin, crawls closer until she’s flat on her back and he hovers above her, arms propping him up on either side of her. He’s already fucking her with his eyes, dark and intense, and it makes it very hard to breathe.

 

She half forgets that they already went there, in a club full of people no less, something she already cringes remembering, but now, in the privacy of his home and his bed, the weight of it all settles like him on her. It’s like suddenly everything is new again. She’ll sleep with him, looking him in the eye, this man she finally _knows_. She’ll sleep with him knowing it all, taking it in stride, the good and bad, all his tenderness as well as his body count.

 

“Say it again,” he whispers softly, a juvenile need to hear her proclaim it over and over he undoubtedly struggles to wrap into words.

“I want you,” she repeats and brings up her hand to run it over his face. He leans into the touch, pressing his full lips against her palm and closes his eyes for a second. Her heart breaks a little at the sight. If possible, he is even more hungry for her gentle words and caresses than he is for her body. He smiles then, to himself, and she feels almost like she’s intruding on a very personal moment. It’s so beautiful, this face of his stretched into a smile like that. She’d like few things more than looking at him smile forever - one of those things is getting him inside of her though.

 

“Ben,” she says, to get him to open his eyes and for the first time he looks at her like he recognizes the name as his own. “I want you _now_.”

 

He bends low to kiss her and pushes into her without ceremony at the same time their lips connect. He fills her up and she feels whole and complete beneath him, the last year and all the pain succumbing to this one moment of truth and she has a hard time keeping up with his mouth when he starts moving. She groans into him and he releases her lips so he can hear her and she repays his every effort by letting her sounds fall freely from her throat. He loves when she’s verbal like that and she doesn’t exactly play it up for his benefit but she enjoys his responses too much not to indulge him freely. He himself growls and grunts and mewls, louder every time she grinds her hips up to meet his thrusts.

 

After a while and with both of them panting and sweating, he picks up the pace the way he does when he gets close and he hasn’t been lying about being too riled up to last very long. She can feel him shake before he probably knows he’s done with himself and so he looks almost startled when he comes apart, eyes locked on hers and she counts herself lucky that she gets to see his face for once. He’d used to bury head and teeth in the dip between her shoulder and her neck when he came but now she gets to see his mouth twitch and then stretch into a soundless “oh” and his eyes bulge as if his brain just exploded. He jerks into her forcefully, two, three more times before he collapses on her mouth, kissing her clumsily like she can give him back his peace of mind. He rolls his hips into her slowly after, leisurely until the last wave of pleasure has ebbed and then pulls out, keeping his lips on her body.

 

***

 

 _The ceiling looks new. Not in the sense that it looks like it belongs to an unlived-in apartment, but everything looks new at the moment. Kylo_ feels _new, down through his spine and into his lungs. They’re heaving, gasping for breath, Rey naked at his side, his come inside her right now, and he grunts as his dick makes a valiant effort at the thought, still far too sensitive for that._

 

_“You need a minute?” Rey asks, out of breath herself._

 

 _“Parts of me need a minute, yeah,” he says on a laugh. The implication is there that he’s nowhere near done, and he isn’t, but he might need a moment to bask in this as well. It hadn’t been real until they crossed inside, until Rey took off her dress and stood there in front of him, certain. It feels like something has burst in his chest every time she said she wanted him, wanted_ this _, and there’s no room for breath beside that._

 

_She crawls over him, hands on his chest swiftly followed by her mouth, and he arches under her attention, fascinated. “Any special requests?” she says conversationally, dropping a kiss on his collarbone. Her hand trails down, resting somewhere around his navel. She’s beautiful like this, not torn up and indecisive, but a woman so at home in this body she shared with him, powerful in the place where she belongs. The thought mingles with her question and visions swim through his muddled head of her thighs spread around him, above him on her knees so she can grind down onto his tongue as much as she pleases._

 

 _He drags her up to kiss her, taking his time with it, exploring her lips and tongue in detail. What he craves is the intimacy of it, he knows that, but what he_ wants _is for her to enjoy herself, to love it so much she won’t remember the word ‘no’ and discover in just how many ways she can say yes._

 

_“I want to get my mouth on you again,” he says when they part, moving his hand between her legs so she can’t miss his intent. She catches it as if she’s been anticipating the move, snatching it away in a death grip._

_“No, no, no.” She doesn’t let go when he tugs, put out. “It’s your turn.”_

_“Sounds ominous,” he says, finally winning back his hand with a twist of the wrist. “Come on, It’ll take me as long to recover as it will to get you off again.”_

 

_“I know.” Rey brings his newly freed hand up to her mouth and, in a very low blow, opens her mouth to start sucking on his finger. It’s unfairly sexy up until she starts talking with his finger still in her mouth, and then it’s this strange mix of endearing and still pretty damn sexy. “But I’m gonna have to insist-” She lets him go finally, for just a second to finish her thought. “-on getting even first.” She takes him back in, the very tip of his finger, swiping her tongue over it, soft and quick, possibly trying to kill him._

 

_“It’s not a competition,” he grumbles, pulling back his hand before he keels over. Instead, he hauls her up so she’s sprawled over him, and he goes about running his hands over her, around her waist and up her ribcage and then up to toy with her breasts. She leans into the touch as he goes on. “If you’re keeping count, we’re doing something wrong.”_

_“...not keeping count,” she sighs, distracted and rocking into his hands. She rakes her fingernails over his skin, groaning a bit herself and making Kylo bite his lip. “Do you really want me to say it?”_

 

_“I’m afraid you’ll have to. I can’t read your mind.” He can see Rey brace herself at his encouragement. She’s never been all that comfortable with dirty talk or laying out what she wants in words. Her face goes pink before she squeezes her eyes shut like it’s the most embarrassing thing._

 

_“I want to blow you until you see stars,” she starts, rambling on. “Wanted to do that for ages...don’t wanna get distracted. Very single-minded about that right now.” Her eyes stay shut until she’s done, and by that point, Kylo has his fingers digging into her skin, grinning like a maniac. It doesn’t really matter if she’s good at it, coming from her, Rey’s genuine desire for him is potentially the most alluring thing he can think of._

 

_“Then come here and do your worst,” he says, pulling at her a little. “Let’s see if we can’t work out a small miracle.” She goes at his urging, so he can kiss her some more - can’t seem to stop, really - and then he lays back, arms coming to rest at his side so she can have access to whatever she wants without him getting in the way._

 

_He watches through half-lidded eyes while she settles in low, moving down his body to wrap her hand around him before she says another word. When she does, it’s a play at being coy, the fakest innocence he’s ever seen. “I think I remember how you like it…” Rey leans down so that the rest of her sentence is breathed out over him, and it’s a fucking shame he can’t quite get hard yet. “But tell me again, just to make sure.”_

 

_“Gently, first,” he tells her, threading his fingers into her hair. “Just your lips.” He doesn’t pull, and she hardly needs any guiding. Her lips brush against his cock in a barely-there kiss, but she looks so into it he almost wants to cry. She’s lavish and indulgent in her attentions, clearly enjoying the hell out of herself. The feel of her moaning and humming through it is almost too much and still not quite enough, sending jangling sensations through him. He doesn’t have to ask her to look at him, her eyes flicking up while her mouth parts ever so slightly and he’s tempted to just start babbling about how good she is, perfect, and honestly ruining even the thought of ever having sex with anyone else in his life. Given the chance, he could live his days out right here, on the cusp of mind-bending arousal with her lips on him._

 

_“Good,” he gasps, a deep breath so he can go on. She’s apparently intent on doing exactly what he asks, so he’ll have to speak up. “Use your hand, too.”_

 

_She does, with a speed that’s like a kick to the gut, stroking her hand down from her mouth and lower, her hair falling over her shoulder to brush against his thigh while her hand cups his balls. The dual sensation almost makes him choke on his tongue. She scoops her hair out of the way and down her back a moment later, and Kylo considers if it would be bad to ask her not to do that. Something about her messy and distracted is just as good as her focused and intent, but there’s a reason she always has her hair up and it’s because it gets fucking everywhere at the best of times._

 

_He’s close enough, half hard but not quite there yet, but it’s enough that he has to ask her to open her mouth and take him in. “Oh, you remember just fine,” he mumbles, watching her duck down like sucking his dick is some kind of reward in and of itself. He doesn’t get what he wants immediately, of course, because she’s Rey, but she spends so long running her tongue over him he doesn’t really mind. She still knows all the most sensitive spots, making him buck up against her tongue and groan, long and loud. She pauses at that, hellish woman that she is, and says, “Talk.”_

_“Fuck, Rey.” She kisses the head, slow and soft like a whisper, and the rest comes rushing out of his mouth in a flood. “Suck me, come on. Want you to get me harder, wanna watch you do it. Wanna see your lips around my cock.”_

 

 _Apparently some of that was the right thing to say, because she laughs breathily and goes for it. She uses her hand and mouth together, matching the movements of both to each other, her free hand between his legs, and_ hums _, and he’s lost. His head goes back for a second, eyes closed to focus on the wet heat and pressure, the feel of her tongue pressing under the head, and when he opens his eyes, Rey is watching him, her eyes huge and dark._ Talk _, she said._

 _“Shit,” he manages through gritted teeth, straining up to watch her. “Look so fucking good like that, pretty, hm-mouth stretched around me._ Fuck _.”_

 

_She rewards him, tightening her lips as she goes down, like she’s pulling on a straw or something, and it’s too good. His hand loosely wound in her hair at the nape of her neck isn’t enough, he wants to touch her, can feel his fingertips tingling with it, unless that’s just because Rey is busy giving him the best blow job of his entire god damn life. He moves to sit up, maybe pull her away so he can reciprocate, but she stops him dead in his tracks with the edge of teeth as a warning. She’d said she didn’t want to get distracted, and obviously she meant it. So he lets her go, dropping back again and resisting the urge to fuck up into her mouth when she props herself up at the right angle and starts pushing past her gag reflex._

 

_He lets out a string of incoherent swearing, can’t even keep track of it himself while he’s preoccupied feeling her throat contract and flutter around the head of his dick. He bumps into the tight warmth there and feels her choke a bit, ducking away for a moment. It’s enough that he’s seeing stars and immediately wants it back._

 

_“Good?” she asks, swallowing and catching her breath. “More?”_

 

 _It’s the stupidest question ever, of all time, because of course. “_ Fuck _yes,” he chokes out._

_Rey’s eyes narrow, pleased with herself, and warning jolts go down his spine. Things always go very badly or spectacularly well for him when Rey gets that expression on her face._

 

_“Beg me.” They’ve been here before, him on his back, waiting for Rey to give him what he wants, but only if he asks nicely. She’d told him before, haltingly and only in the cover of dark, that she loves him like that, gets off on the power of it, and Kylo is more than happy to give it to her._

_“Please.” It trips out of his mouth almost before Rey can finish demanding it, and he says it again, because she wants it and because he’s throbbing, aching in her hand. “Please, let me come. I need it, need you, please.”_

 

_She smirks, takes him by the hips, able to manhandle him a bit like this while he’s weak with wanting her, and shifts them toward the foot of the bed. He gets a thrill out of watching the muscles work in her arms, aggressive in action if not words. She moves down gracefully, kneeling so his legs are spread around her and she has more room to work. It’s no time at all before she has him in her throat again, all the way this time. Kylo calls out to her, God, and probably a few other deities, jerking up onto his elbows and nearly losing it every time his cock disappears down her throat._

 

_She can’t keep that up with the speed she wants and his hips are gunning for like they have a mind of their own. Instead, she covers the length of him with her mouth around the head and her hand wrapped around everything she can’t fit inside. He starts jerking when she adds a twist to every stroke, and then she just fucking sits there, her fist tight around his cock, waiting. The sound he makes after too many seconds can only be called a whimper, but he doesn’t do anything but shudder and wait with her, willing to see how this plays out. When he’s near shouting, she dips down to suck just the head into her mouth, barely inside her lips, and runs her tongue in circles, widening ever so slightly with each repetition. He breathes hard watching her rest her bottom lip under the crown, tongue peeking out like a tease. She does it for minutes, driving him out of his head, running her palm over his hips and thighs where he’s shaking with restraint, her other hand keeping him still._

 

 _“Not yet,” she says, quiet. He outright sobs, breathless and fisting his hand in her hair like that’ll hold him together. His frame is curled over her, this tiny slip of a woman breaking him apart and him letting her do it. He might be dying but_ fuck _if it isn’t worth it to die like this._

 

_“Oh, you wanna come now?” she asks, on her knees and more powerful for it._

_His_ yes _is a garbled mess. It’s really more a smattering of_ yes, fuck, please _, repeated and jumbled together, not stopping even as she lets him, moving over his dick fast and sloppy so he’s on edge again within a handful of seconds. And then she stops again and his stomach clenches, teeth digging into his lip. She has to be toying with him at this point, seeing how far he’ll let her push him, and he’s so fucked up, he’s willing to let her. She’s too beautiful, flush with the thrill of it, so hot getting off on watching him squirm for her._

 

 _“Not until I tell you, alright?” He nods, beyond words at this point, and she fucking_ laughs _, all low and hot against his skin, before going down on him again. It’s a feat not just fucking her mouth, using his grip on her hair to hold her still and just go for it, brutal and animalistic._

 

 _“Rey, fucking -_ please _.” She smiles, as much as she can with her lips wrapped around his dick, looking at him like she’s made of affection and not torture. She pulls back and gives him this look like he’s something precious, like she’s proud of him, and he can’t. Can’t handle that or the moment she finally says, “Go ahead.” He only lasts long enough for Rey to run her tongue up the length of him and barely close her lips over him before he’s spilling into her mouth, gasping and jerking like he’s been electrocuted. His mind spirals on the last flick of her tongue and the way his hips have gone numb from how good it feels to finally come._

 

_He falls back onto the mattress when it’s over, entirely boneless with his feet still on the floor and his breath nowhere near normal. He can’t move when Rey licks him clean through the aftershocks, just lay there and try not to asphyxiate. It’s no big news to Kylo that she can reduce him to a writhing, begging mess, but he’d somewhat forgotten the intensity of it. There’s an edge to their sex now, as well, that hadn’t been there before, borne of this new knowledge of how far they can push each other. He’s not just the darkly intriguing man from her past, he’s someone she can push and drag at and bite into, and he loves it as much as he hopes she does._

 

_He’s still a little hazy when he turns to find her lying next to him, running her fingers through his hair. She looks smug as all hell, and Kylo can practically smell the arousal on her. It’s irresistible, and that more than anything, gets his limbs moving, pulling her in by the hip when he can get his arms to function. He may not be able to sit up yet, but that doesn’t stop him from tugging her until she’s straddling his mouth, riding his tongue and fingers. He gets her over the edge of her second orgasm for the night still sprawled on his back, and won’t let her move away until she’s reached a third, hot on the heels of her second. Rey cries out and arches so beautifully for him, sweaty and shocked by the quick succession, but she wrenches her hips up out of his grip afterward and kisses the taste of her out of his mouth._

 

_She rides him after that, slick with her own orgasm as well as from him, and it’s a slow ride. It’s better than the first round now that they’ve both taken the edge off. Like this, Kylo spends as much time as he pleases studying her features. He watches the way her eyebrows pop up when she finds an angle she likes, hooks his hands behind her knees and pulls. She spreads wider and they both moan as he sinks impossibly deeper into her. Rey’s hands travel over him, restless, mapping out his shoulders and arms, in over his chest and down to his waist until she presses there, using the leverage to ride him hard until they’re both panting. He clutches at her, sitting up enough to wrap his arms around her and pull her into him on every downward thrust. Her eyelids flutter when she comes, breath stuttering, and he can’t look away, memorizing the angle of her satisfied smile and the way she lets her head roll back. He can’t tell if she’s clenching up on purpose or if it’s because she’s still coming, but it brings him over the edge with her, eyes locked on each other._

 

_Rey climbs down from him with a slight wince and lies down at his side, gently running her hands over him. They’re silent for long moments, touching while they both calm down. Kylo can feel sweat cooling all over him, and it’s slightly disgusting, but well-earned. Rey has her fingers in his hair again, toying with it where it falls behind his ear, when she speaks up._

 

_“Would it be terrible if I wanted to keep going?”_

_Realistically, it’s asking a bit much of his body, but if anyone can get him going again, it’s Rey. He’s certainly willing to give it a shot, and if his dick can’t keep up, he has perfectly good hands and mouth._

_“I don’t think you’re using the word ‘horrible’ right,” he drawls, dragging his lips over her shoulder. “You meant it’d be absolutely great if you wanted to keep going. We’re still playing catch up.” Kylo hadn’t actually kept track of how many times he’s had to take care of himself over the time they’ve been working together, but he’s fairly sure they haven’t passed the mark yet._

 

_“I just wanted to make sure.” She turns earnest eyes on him, trying to be considerate, he can tell. “Because I might go a little overboard. You’ll have to stop me, maybe if I wear you out.” It might be the sexiest thing she’s ever said. The thought of her wanting him that badly is by itself enough to send a jolt down to his cock. He’d love to wreck her up, but she won’t be wrecked, she’d love it. Rey is gagging for him just as badly as he is for her, and it’s pure male ego mixing with the desperate, grasping desire to have her approval and affection, swirling together to stall his breath._

 

_“By all means, do wear me out, please,” he says, snaking his hand between her legs. She giggles and kisses him, biting down when he presses against her clit, slipping down in the mess of their come so his fingers are pressed inside her with no effort. She grinds into his hand, clawing at his arm and gasping into his mouth. He keeps up a running commentary for her, telling her how beautiful she is, how good she looks in his bed, how he’d like to fuck her until they’re both delirious, bury himself inside her and never leave. She comes quickly, fingers locked around his wrist and pressing him hard against her with the heel of his palm tight on her clit._

 

_Rey rolls him over onto her and Kylo is almost surprised to find himself hard again, but doesn’t waste it, pushing into her at her urging. He doesn’t come for a long time but she doesn’t seem to mind, though he thinks she must be sore - he certainly is. She comes twice more in the meantime, caught somewhere between him pushing her face first into the mattress hunched above her, and putting both her legs on his shoulders, folding her nearly in half. He tries to recall every last position she’d liked during their brief affair and works them in and when he finally reaches his end, he has her on the edge of the bed, him standing, pumping into her from behind when he comes for the last time of that night with staggering force. His vision whites out and he has to hold onto her while she keeps fucking back onto him until she too follows, his hand reaching around her, the way he’d fantasized so much about these fast few days._

 

_Eight. He thinks, a smug fuzzy response to a conversation they’d had about counting that feels miles away. Pride doesn’t cover it. Elated is more like it, with a healthy dose of stupid satisfied male ego, because surely no one else can do her this good. His forehead drops between her shoulderblades for a moment, panting and grinning, before he pulls out with the inescapable knowledge he’s done for the night. He bullies her up onto the bed, both of them unwilling to move much with the thrumming pleasure weighing them down._

 

_“That was something,” Rey mutters, drowsy and spent, when they’re laid out on their sides, the sheet pulled up, but too hot for blankets._

_“You have a talent for understatement,” Kylo shoots back. He might be hovering over her a little, incapable of keeping his hands off her though he knows neither of them is up for anything more tonight. He’s sure Rey would deny it if he asked, but her body language says she’s worn out._

 

_“It was perfect.” And for a second, it stays perfect, until Rey goes on. “We should talk about it.”_

_“We should definitely not talk about it,” he says. She can’t be fucking serious. They’re moments into the afterglow and Kylo won’t let her ruin this for him. He leans down to kiss her when she opens her mouth to say “But-”_

 

_“No.” He gets out the words between kissing her, quick at first, then slowing down so that each pause is longer. “I was there. You were there. It was great.” He drops a small kiss on the end of her nose, earning a frown when her mouth had been pursed to accept a real kiss. “The end.”_

 

_She kisses him back this time, holding onto him and pushing her tongue against his like they could take it further. They don’t, calming to a soft slide of tongues and gentle brushes of teeth until Kylo ducks back and hopes he looks sincere when he says, “Please, Rey.”_

 

_If they stop to talk about it, real life will flood back in and he’s not ready to let this go yet. Who knows what Rey will decide when she starts trying to think about things logically, but Kylo needs this one night to stay perfect. Needs it so badly it twists his insides. He just wants to have made love to her pretty fantastically and bask in the afterglow and fall asleep with her beside him._

 

_Rey’s face scrunches and his heart nearly drops out before she softens. “Well then, you’re gonna have to put me to sleep quickly now,” she says, and leans in to kiss him hard. He doesn’t respond in words, just holds her and thanks whatever luck he has left, and they keep kissing until it becomes languid, just lips brushing lips. For once, he falls asleep first, right on that spot between her shoulder and neck, like the luckiest motherfucker on the planet._

 

***

 

It’s way into midday when Rey stirs from where she is wedged between Ben’s arm, probably dead at this point, and his chest and he stirs with her but is as always more reluctant to wake. She sits up, disoriented at first, then feeling every last thing he did to her the night before, the echo of him stretching and filling her a dull, pounding ache between her legs. “I can’t sit,” she says, mouth paper-dry from dehydration.

“Then don’t,” he mumbles easily and lets his fingertips trace down the length of her spine. “Lay down.”

 

She does, tries to fold back into the position she’s slept so soundly in but she can’t find it again. The peace is gone. It was too much. They gave each other too much. Went in too deep. Now it will be torture to stop, to retreat back behind the lines, which is what they have to do. She shouldn’t have pushed so far, she shouldn’t have let them go there. She wants to hit herself but presses her arms to her body, trying to breathe even through the mess in her head and her runaway heartbeat.

 

“Don’t,” he says like he hears her brain race off and pulls at her a little. “Stop thinking.”

She shakes her head and tries to talk through the lump in her throat. “I can’t,” she breathes and pauses because it’s a physical struggle to get the words out. “ _We_ can’t. We can’t do this again.”

 

“I thought we settled this,” he says, quiet to match her barely audible tone and it feels so absurd to be beside him, willing herself not to touch him with her body still beating softly from where he’s been and hear him sound so disappointed, like she just took something precious away. And she did, from both of them. “You said you wanted me.”

 

She twists around into his side, to make him see, to make him understand. She blindly kisses what skin she’s pressed into and then looks up at where he’s studying her, face in a tortured frown.

 

“I did, I _do_. And I don’t regret it,” she says firmly. “At all.” And yet. “But I want it so badly, all of it, it’s just...I won’t survive it when it’s over.” Which it will be, before long, inevitably. They’re destined to fail, starcrossed like some tragic, pathetic, real-life Romeo and Juliet and she hates it more than she’s ever hated anything. There is no possible future in any scenario, no world they can share after her assignment is over.

 

“So that’s it,” he says flatly and brittle, taking his arm back from under her and training his eyes on the ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at her. She’s never heard him broken quite like this before. “You can just pretend this was the end of it?”

He doesn’t _get it_ , why doesn’t he get it when it’s so obvious? Groaning, she sits up regardless of the muted pain between her legs because she needs some space or she won’t get the words out.

“We live in a real world. We have to come back to it. You’re... _Kylo Ren_ and I’m a federal agent. If you follow this through to conclusion, it’ll take us to a place we cannot go,” she says into the room, not able to even so much as glance over or she’ll falter. “I doesn’t matter how we feel about each other or that I love you. We have no future. We need to be _rational_.”

 

***

 

I love you _echoes in his head like an eternal reflection between two mirrors, on endless repeat. She loves him. How can she possibly say that in the same breath as she tells him it doesn’t matter? It’s everything he’s ever wanted - not like he wants to have things, but how he wants to_ be _. If he could be someone Rey loved...well, that would be everything._

 

 _“What if -” He’s grasping at straws, has no solution, just the breathless, driving need to find a way, to hold on to this wonderful thing he’s just gotten hours ago, barely awake enough to process what it all means. “I could be_ Ben _, we could -”_

 

_Rey’s face crumbles, heartbreak written plain on her as she leans down to kiss him. It’s a desperate thing, brittle and counterpointed by the way her hands clutch at him, almost hurting where her palms press against the sides of his head._

 

_Her desperation makes it real, settling the echo in his mind and the hollowed out cavern of his chest, so that her love sits like a bright light inside him, casting shadows longer than he can follow. He feels all of his years at once, and much older, accepting that there’s no way to fight reality itself. His choices are separation from her or death, and the former will certainly kill him in it’s time. All he can do is accept her love and do the best he can to deserve it, meager as his offering is. By letting her tear them apart._

 

_“You know I’m not going to stop wanting you, right?” he tells her. “I can’t.”_

 

_She sobs at that, holding tight around his neck while she buries her face there and cries. She groans in what may be physical pain, and his arms come up around her, automatic, holding on like maybe he’ll be able to hold them together if he tries hard enough._

_“Fuck, why?” she mumbles into his skin, her gasping tears making his neck humid and uncomfortable and he doesn’t care. She shouldn’t love him, but fuck, if she does he’ll give her everything he possibly can in return for the privilege to be loved by her. If staying away from her gives her peace, if it’s what she wants, he’ll do it, even if it kills him._

 

 _“It doesn’t matter why. We can’t do anything about it,” he says, a hollow restating of her own words that sit in a heavy silence for a few moments while Rey cries more quietly against him, his hands smoothing over her back in some measure of comfort. “There’s still something we_ can _do though. We have a job, Rey. And if we don’t make it out in one piece,_ they _have to.”_

 

_He’s all grim determination in the face of this reality, where he has the best thing in the world but no way to keep it. He doesn’t expect to survive, if he’s honest. If he doesn’t get taken out in some crossfire when it all inevitably goes to shit, he’ll let them drag his sorry ass to jail so Rey can walk away from it. If he had the choice, he’d spend every spare moment he has left with her, just like this, wrapped in each other, but that is selfish. Rey has to be able to go on without him when it’s all said and done._

 

_She emerges from his shoulder, face streaked with tears that have stopped as if she willed them away suddenly. “I love you.”_

 

_It’s a comfort to hear it again, a statement now, not a throwaway fragment of a larger thought, splitting joy in amongst all the darkness of reality, and Kylo presses his forehead to hers, eyes closed. A shadow of a memory comes to him, a vision of his parents, clever and in love, younger than it feels like he’s ever been, before his father had disappeared. If he tells her he feels the same, he won’t be able to go on. He’ll tear the world down to get to her if he makes it real with the admission. He knows how much it costs her to say it, bare and honest like that, because he doesn’t have the strength to do the same. He doesn’t understand how it came to pass, how she could possibly be in love with him but he takes it, and all the responsibility that comes with, her heart in his hands to keep safe. It’s all that matters. All that’ll ever matter again._

  
_“I know.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....I am so sorry.
> 
> It's always a trade-off with these two...pleasure and pain all at once. You can blame me for the ending, Ellie nearly killed me (but you can thank her for channeling Adam Driver at certain *ahem* moments in the writing and improving the sexy times).


	7. CHAPTER SEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We rejoin our intrepid heroes on their quest for truth, justice, and a whole hell of a lot of frustration. That's right, folks, it's still just as dramatic up in here, with the plot very much thickening. *Do be aware!* There is a bit of squicky stuff in this chapter, so give the tags a look-see if you're concerned.

**CHAPTER SEVEN: [Let Me Hold Your Hand and Dance Around the Flames (Dust to Dust)]**

 

The weekend that follows their romantic exploits and subsequent resolve of not repeating them in the future is a weird mix of a sense of apprehension and domesticity. They walk on eggshells around each other, careful not to do so much as brush by when they move about the apartment because their self-control is equally brittle. As evidenced like always by the moment the light goes out and they’re sharing a bed. They pretend to be asleep until Ben moves to the couch and Rey lets him, which she hates but it’s better this way. She barely has a hold on her limbs and if he stayed close, she doesn’t know what she’d do.

 

The next night is easier, if not by much. They’re both determined enough to keep Ben in his bed though to make it work and by next morning, Rey is splayed out on the mattress with Ben half draped over her arm. They manage. Outside of their bed, the operation continues. There’s frank discussion of what they need to do. Rey has a part to play with dealing, to keep up her story, but Ben has to start getting closer to the actual trafficking operation - he can’t just be in charge of overseeing security at the docks and hope to stumble onto something damning, he needs to be there for some of the despicable action so they have solid proof and not just hearsay and circumstantial evidence.

 

Rey collects a small wire from the dead drop and shows Ben how to work it, to turn it on and off unseen and how to get rid of it quickly if he’s been made. Technically, he has a rank so far outside of the First Order’s usual structures that no one would dare touch or openly suspect him of anything, but you can never be too careful. She interviews him, with her own dictaphone about the inner workings of the organization, rehashing the crash course he gave her at the start in a sort of guided interview. Rey knows what to ask for and Ben knows what to say and once they tire, she transcribes the recordings while he cooks for them.

 

He creates full blown menus, intricate meals and tasteful compositions, spending a ridiculous amount of time on silly things like poaching eggs, steaming vegetables, or putting parsley on the plates to make them look nice. It warms her heart to the point where it feels more like burning. It’s obvious he pours into the crafting of their meals what he can’t put into words or do to her body, and it fills her stomach but does nothing about the hunger. Neither does his utterly sweet demeanor. It’s kind of new, or better really old, the way he talks to her and caters to her, very gentle, forthcoming, attentive, interested. He asks her a million things, lets her pick TV shows to watch and discusses them with her at length. He reads her passages from books he bought online, books he read once but never had use for having around. Now he does and his inventory keeps growing. They talk about E.T.A. Hoffmann's _Sandman_ , about automatons and shadowy figures seducing young, impressionable men until what is real and what is false becomes muddied. She rants on and on about the horrible ending to a sitcom she deems ruined by the very last, entirely horrible episode and he humors her for the whole hour it takes her to lay out for him how she would’ve written the last two seasons of that, had anybody bothered to ask her.

 

She reaches for him with her mind while sitting on her hands and holding her breath. In lieu of physical intimacy, she learns all there is to learn about his superficial tastes, what music he likes these days, what clothes he wears to which occasion, how he tends to stumble just a little bit over his words sometimes, how his face flinches when he’s deep in thought and how he always puts tons of sugar into his coffee but doesn’t really like sweet things in any other capacity.

 

And when that weird, wonderful, tedious, amazing weekend holed up with him ends, they have a plan to go on, to make sure Rey gets more evidence, more hard proof of what Hux is up to and it’s right and well and necessary to move forward with the investigation. But a part of Rey kind of wants to press pause and put a hold to her life and her mission to prolong that weekend, to forget the world outside and never think about it ever again. There’s no pause button, however - and life goes on.

 

_***_

 

_The next night Kylo is called to play Rey’s - mostly unnecessary - extra security, he works up the stomach to approach Hux, namely by downing two shots in rapid succession and then reminding himself how much Rey is willing to put into this. If Rey can play the downtrodden street rat and deal with living with Kylo despite all their many issues, he can suck it up and try to get in with Hux. The dickbag in question is of course lounging, in a corner booth where some poor waitress must be keeping up the steady stream of drinks attracting the raucous women sitting around him. Kylo finds a place in the small crowd, flagging down a beer for himself and hovering at the edges. Hux will be sure to call attention to his awkward hovering, if only to be an ass about it._

 

_“Are you going to shuffle your feet all day or is there something you actually want?” Hux doesn’t disappoint, drawling condescendingly at Kylo without turning his head any more than necessary. Kylo stomps on the urge to shove away the girl Hux is currently flattering himself with. It’d be a bad idea to start off his campaign by removing Hux’s playthings._

 

 _He stands on Hux’s opposite side instead, unable to fully rein in his aggression at first. “I wouldn’t call doing_ my job _shuffling... But let’s cut to the chase.” He puts on as neutral a face as possible, knowing the camaraderie that was once natural between them would be the worst kind of stiff at this point. “Whatever’s going down with the docks is big. I want in.”_

 

_Hux blinks, a bit taken aback, and considers him before saying, “No.”_

_“I’m already working your security, Hux,” Kylo says, anticipating Hux’s initial refusal. He’d be suspicious if it were that easy. “You know I can get an in through those peons. I’m trying to do you a courtesy.” He takes a sip of his beer, finding his groove. “This pissing contest has gone on long enough.”_

 

_“Strange new words from Ren,” Hux says. He motions the girl away himself, the ease of her departure speaking to how little she wanted to be there in the first place. Hux stands, eyeing him and moving like the snake he is - steps picked out carefully and inspiring Kylo’s skin to crawl. He leans more toward restrained violence when Hux lifts a hand to run his fingers across the side of his face, making Kylo flinch back as he goes on. “Is the little bitch making you mellow or what? You looking for extra money to buy her something nice?”_

 

_Kylo doesn’t put as much space between them as he’d like, relying on his height to keep him from taking the submissive position, but carefully keeping his true feelings in check. “I’m bored. It’s all well and good getting her settled, but you and I both know this is a waste of my time. The kids’ play bullshit is tiring.”_

_The invasion of space isn’t Hux’s usual tactic, not with Kylo, but he’s relying on it now, and Kylo has to wonder if it’s because Hux remembers his discomfort with casual touch. It’s equally likely that it’s a means of putting Kylo’s back up to get a read on him, or Hux is just getting off on it. “You obviously haven’t asked for something in a while,” Hux says after a moment, retracting his hand fully and becoming the calculating businessmen. “What will you offer me for letting you...partake in our dealings?”_

 

 _This is the man Kylo can deal with, the one who’d managed to earn Kylo’s respect as a young man. “Like I said, this pissing contest has gone on long enough,” he repeats himself, taking his cue and falling into the part of the smirking, greedy foil for Hux. “You and I used to make a good team. It’s high time I remembered that. I’m willing to follow your lead on this, but I_ want _in.” He takes another casual drink, shrugging off the first step that had set off this whole chain of events for Kylo. “I already shot a senator, I know it’s big.”_

 

_“Fine,” Hux says, benevolent. “You can join. I’ll have need of someone with your skillset before long. I’ll break you into it softly.” Of course he sees the reason in it. Vile he may be, but Hux is a businessman at his core, dealing in profits and the usefulness of people as tools. “We can talk about the rest later.”_

_He says something else after that, something nasty about giving Kylo something to think about while fucking “the little gutter rat” but he doesn’t hear it past the rush of blood in his head when Hux’s hand goes between his legs, invasive and sickening. Kylo’s grip on Hux’s wrist is instantaneous and too hard, the bones grinding under his fingers as he shoves Hux away._

 

_“I said I was willing to work with you, Hux, not fuck you,” he hisses. He’s seeing red, can feel a muscle in his jaw working as Kylo strains not to pitch Hux to the floor and put a bullet in his kneecap to teach him a lesson. “You put your hands on me again, you’ll be pulling back a stump.”_

 

_Hux must be better situated than Kylo thought, because he hardly lets the threat get to him, laughing a quiet, “We’ll see” before telling Kylo he can go like Hux summoned him in the first place._

_“Don’t presume to order me around like you’re Snoke himself,” Kylo snaps, fist in Hux’s shirt front, ignoring the way Hux frowns at the wrinkles it puts in the expensive fabric and releasing him with a shove. “Your operation isn’t good enough to make me bow. I can find my own work just fine if you want to throw away a lucrative partnership being a greedy bastard.”_

 

 _“You want something from_ me _. You’d do well to remember that.” The sneer on his face makes Hux look even uglier. “If you’re too stubborn to bow, so be it. But you will_ bend _before this is over. Trust me.”_

_There’s something about the way it’s said that makes Kylo suspicious. His instincts are one of Kylo’s best-used weapons, earned by moving among the worst kind of people with even darker intentions, but his perspective is skewed here. There may be some piece Kylo hasn’t seen yet, he gets the feeling there is, but his judgment is clouded with the red haze brought on by dealing with this piece of shit, especially with everything on the line. Rey’s livelihood and possibly life, as well as the unknown innocents the whole thing centers on. Kylo has no way to respond that won’t risk everything for them, so he reins in the seething rage and bites down so hard on the instinct to lash out, he can taste the violence like blood on his teeth._

 

 _“We’ll see. You make it worth my while and we’ll see,” he says finally, borrowing Hux’s phrases because all he has in mind are threats and demands to know_ actual _details. Hux has barely given him an agreement, let alone anything he can use, and Kylo’s back hurts with the urge to pace and punch something. He’s never been a patient man, not when dragging the answers he wants out by force seems so much more appealing. But there is a plan here, and he’ll stick to it as best he can, violated and vengeful as it leaves him feeling._

 

 _Hux accepts it with a simple “Fine,” moving away to briefly address one of the girls who’s wandered over in search of Hux’s credit card and willing to flash her tits to get it. “Run back to the misses,” he says dismissively. “She can have whatever it is she wants soon enough. And maybe then I can have what I want.” The smug grin he tosses over his shoulder before heading back to the center of his small, sleazy kingdom is insufferably knowing. “We can share and share alike, can’t we, Ren? I know you remember how to_ share _.”_

 

_Kylo has never been graced with the mercy of forgetting what he’d done while trashed out of his mind, the memories much clearer than when he’d actually been doing it, and it’s a particularly cruel curse in moments like these. The inflection is enough to remind Kylo what Hux’s idea of sharing with women had amounted to in the past. Kylo has a crystal clear memory of being unable to say no when Hux had orchestrated a ‘special’ night with a woman shared between them. It had been brutal, one of the most sickening memories in Kylo’s life, and his stomach turns. He’d woken, sobered up, to find the miserable woman still pale, bruises ringing her throat and the horrifying recollection that some of them were from his own hands._

_Hux’s voice had been distant as Ben’s mind reeled, laughing about a good time, and Ben had run. He’d run without thinking about it, barely stopping to put himself to rights before bursting out the door, only stopping when his lungs burned and his legs shook, falling into some back alley in Chicago, gasping. Kylo still doesn’t know what ever became of that woman, but his traitorous mind supplies the image of Rey in her place, lifeless and used. It’s almost enough to send him to his knees again, all these years later, and Kylo has to move or he’ll be left vomitting on the floor or tearing Hux apart with his bare hands at the mere suggestion._

 

_He has to go to Rey before he can be anything like stable for the rest of the night, obeying her rules about distance, but physically unable to do anything until he sees her safe and whole. She’s fine, of course, in a completely different part of the club from where Hux still is, working the crowd with growing ease. Kylo is torn between being proud of her for playing it so well and regret that he’s driven her to this. Overwhelmingly, drowning out everything else, is the need to keep her safe. He’ll break Hux in half if he tries to touch her, mission be damned. It’s his own personal line, because Rey would surely put the mission first, not knowing what Kylo does._

 

_Dealing with Hux is a herculean task, but Kylo does it, swallowing his rage at the fucking bastard. He keeps the thought of the risks Rey is taking at the forefront of his mind as he helps oversee the transport of minorly illegal goods in and out of Port Elizabeth, testing the lanes for security with low-risk product. He secures shipments and does the jobs that are below him, drawing on what he remembers of interacting with Hux before until he can fake it with reliability. Part of him longs for the oblivion of his old routine, but he has Rey at home and it’s a better distraction than any drug could ever be._

_Hux, in turn, starts to entrust Kylo with incrementally more important tasks, but it’s frustratingly slow work, a handful of days before Kylo is asked to so much as beat cooperation out of anyone, and he comes back to Rey with the smallest bits of useful information. He hates it more than words could ever express, but he does his best to leave it at the door to his apartment, asking after Rey’s work instead._

 

_While her side of things continues going well, it seems every attempt Kylo makes is stalled and only half useful. He can’t seem to reach Snoke, though Kylo makes enough tries over three days he starts to feel like a needy girlfriend or something. He’s never had trouble getting in touch with Snoke before, even been treated as something of a protege by the ancient conniving bastard, but he keeps getting deflection. Snoke expresses his disapproval eventually, reminding Kylo he is not a child who needs to show off his every new acquisition. If it’s so important to him that Rey be introduced to the head of the First Order, perhaps Kylo is becoming lax in his own duties, and Snoke assures him he can find tasks for Kylo should his work with Hux be inadequate in keeping his focus._

_The dismissal and implication of being remiss in his duties makes Kylo pull back. Rey ought to be an asset, not a point of weakness or leverage, so he is forced to let it go. There’s that same feeling again as well, his instincts telling him that there’s something Kylo is missing. He thinks up the worst case scenario, as he is wont to do, and has to wonder if Snoke somehow knows. Snoke certainly has enough cops paid off that someone might have recognized Rey, given how young she is for a fed. It’s another thing he doesn’t want to bring home to her, surely a product of paranoia and the anxiety beaten into him from dealing with Hux all day, but it weighs on him and he can’t find ways to alleviate the worry._

 

_Kylo is very good at pretending lately. He can pretend he doesn’t want to reach out and touch Rey in every quiet moment living together. He can pretend he doesn’t choke on murderous intent every time Hux opens his mouth. He can pretend he doesn’t worry about Snoke calling out a hit on him and Rey when he least expects it. It’s only a bit of hell, and Kylo has plenty of practice living in hell._

 

_***_

 

Rey spends every minute she isn’t collecting evidence or trying to stay away from Ben out on the streets with Phasma. It’s tedious, rallying up buyers and dealers and keeping people in line. Many of the men that are rightly afraid of Phasma still treat Rey like a schoolgirl and by the third day, her knuckles are raw from punching the fuckers in their stupid noses so they know she’s not just the pretty side-kick. The people they visit for a second time know not to fuck with her after, at least. Phasma is as pleasant as she can be, or at least so Rey guesses, but she isn’t the breeziest person to be around at any rate. It’s hard being outside of her bubble, being Fuckup-Rey without Ben to center her, without his outside-world glum and darkly brooding intensity to draw from. On her own she feels out of her element, off kilter and more insecure in her role than she cares to admit. This discomfort however is useful in that she can use it to put in her spiel of wanting to work closer with Kylo Ren.

 

It’s a deliberate angle they agreed on, so they can get her in his proximity for when Hux lets him deeper into the trafficking op. The tall woman does notice and at some point, late in the week, she asks Rey about it.

“I’d just feel better with Kylo around,” she says, sheepish in the back of the town car they share. “I don’t like being away from him.” This is playing the needy card in a way that’s almost too pathetic to do with a straight face, but then again it’s sadly also kind of true.

Phasma eyes her and deliberates this and it’s a while before she answers. “You’re doing solid work here, even better in the club. But I understand. What with the nature of your _relationship_ , that you would rather work with him. It isn’t pretty, what he’s working on, however. You will see before long.”

 

As the day fizzles into the evening, another Thursday night at Maz Kanata’s _Castle_ is on their shared agenda and Rey dons her glittery party dress like armor. She finds some of the guys from the weekend before and does a couple of sales. The ones who sampled before are paying customers now and soon, Rey will hand them off to the street dealers, who will keep them in supply and potentially into heavier, more expensive, more addictive stuff. Ben was supposed to have been there but because she handled herself the last couple of times, she gets to do this one alone, with even Phasma checking out at one point and retiring to chat with Maz in the back room.

 

There is just one moment where Rey wishes Ben or even Phasma was there with her and it’s when one paying customer gets handsy, expecting some attention in return for the money he paid and when she tells him off, he gets angry. He’s half in her face when she stands up straight and gives him a look straight out of Kylo Ren’s playbook. There’s uninhibited violence simmering behind it and it carries all the way through her words, hitting like bullets.

“If you put your hands on me one more time, I’ll break your fingers one by one,” she seethes and thinks _murder_.

“Come on, baby, don’t be like that,” he says, although it’s more male pride than not hearing her right and reaches for her again. Rey catches his movement mid air, and does precisely what she promised him; she breaks his middle and index finger with one pull and he screams, louder than the Top 40 song that booms through the club.

“You fucking bitch,” he yells, holding his wrist. “You’re fucking insane!”

 

Before he can do anything more, the security detail Rey winked at is by her side and grabs the guy by the collar, dragging him away. Her heart is beating out of her chest with restrained fear but she’s proud in equal measure for having stood her ground. She tells Phasma a while later but vows not to tell Ben. He’d only take it the wrong way and maybe go on a hunt to break the rest of the dude’s fingers...if not more.

 

Phasma lets her off the hook then and it’s a blessing because after hours of walking through the crowd from top to bottom of the club, her feet are sore and the blisters that have barely healed from the week before are back with a vengeance.

“I am taking a cab,” Phasma says before she leaves. “You can have the town car. Good work tonight, Rey.” She considers her a moment, almost already out of the door and then adds, “It’s all well with you jumping ship for Kylo but you’re doing a pretty decent job on your own.”

 

“I don’t know what to make of her,” Maz says when Phasma is gone and Rey massages her feet, shoes discarded by the door.

“She’s not so bad,” Rey replies, “considering.”

“Those are dangerous people you’re in bed with, Rey,” Maz says like a throwaway thing, not as weighty as such words maybe should be spoken. She tries not to analyze the innuendo but then again, Maz might know exactly that she was actually in bed with one of them, especially taking into account that they went at it first on her very mezzanine, the sight of it still making her stomach take a dip, even now after multiple nights spent working the place.

“I have to be,” she says, looking away, “it’s the only way to take them down.”

“You really want to take down that boy of yours?” Maz asks, an eyebrow cocked skeptically.

“He’s not a boy,” Rey says. “But yes, him too. He’s part of it.”

“Oh, sweet star child, you need to get a lot better at lying if you want to keep on this path you chose for yourself.”

 

“It’s a long story,” Rey mutters, turning to look the other woman in the eye, finding it warm and kind. “He’s doing the best he can. He isn’t happy with most of what The First Order does, but he’s been part of it too long.”

“You still love him all the same,” Maz says.

“Can we talk about something else?” Rey would’ve thought she’d like talking about Ben but now that she could, it feels wrong, all clouded in the white lies of her two-way-cover-story and any picture they paint distorts who Ben is, what their story is and why she feels the way she does about him. She doesn’t doubt Maz would understand if she knew it all but she can’t, so it’s a moot point.

 

“As you wish, starlight girl,” Maz smiles, accepting Rey’s boundaries with no further iteration. “Tell me then, how are you?”

The question takes her aback somewhat because for the million things she thinks about every day, she hasn’t stopped once to reflect on how she’s actually doing, beside the jumble and tumble of feelings Ben stirs and twists up within her. It takes a while to put words to it now. “I’m okay, I think. It’s a bit scary this whole thing, understandably. This is my first real assignment. I started working organized crime straight out of the academy, the youngest in my class and the youngest at the bureau in years and years. I was supposed to be working mostly at a desk, because I’m good with machines and picking up clues other people miss. You know? I’m a good _finder_. But then stuff happened and suddenly I was an asset and now here I am, as far away from a desk as I could possibly get. It’s, yeah, it’s pretty terrifying, actually.”

“If you’re around so many people as I am, you see many come and go and after a while, you start seeing the same eyes in different faces,” Maz says quiet but intendedly. “And yours are not the eyes of someone who wants to run. You’re iron, Rey Kenobi, and you will be fine.”

 

“Thank you,” Rey says, sincerely, moved to sheepishness by the other woman's kind words and yet so utterly grateful to hear them. “I hope you’re right. It’s a slippery slope.”

“Just look for the light in you, it’s all around us, it’s always been there,” she says, mystifyingly. “You just need to listen, it will guide you.” And she puts her hand on her arm with gentle pressure, her dark skin soft but reassuring to the touch. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“I won’t, thank you, Maz,” Rey smiles and maybe the woman’s kindness makes her a little bit emotional, so emotional, that she rises and starts to gather her things so she can leave before she cries like a whimp. Maz lets her, observing with that calm and ethereal grace that is so distinctly her own.

 

“There’s still light in your man as well,” she says when Rey is all set to leave. “I can see it, it’s not too late for him.”

“I know,” Rey says, smiles and prays to every god ever imagined that it’s true.

 

Back with Ben, Rey looks for that light, looks to find it in his eyes when he smiles and in his voice when he laughs but during their brief talk before going to bed and the whole following day, he’s tense, trying to mask it as concentration as they transcript the things he recorded on his phone from the men at the docks and a phone call he managed to tape right under Hux’s nose. Ben doesn’t do anything but frown all day, his features only softening when he really looks at her and they talk about random, meaningless things, like who’s going to do the grocery run, whose turn it is to do laundry or once, actually, about the weather. She even goes so far as to make two, three terrible puns to coax some brightness out of him but he doesn’t really hear her.

 

As the evening rolls around, he sets out to cook. It’s supposed to be another elaborate meal; a lamb stew curry for which he’s marinated the meat over night no less. He works quickly, single-mindedly, a harsh edge to his motions that has nothing to do with the cooking but everything with the latent violence that has strained the muscles underneath his skin this entire week. He keeps it down as best as he can but knowing him, he’s struggling with something he won’t talk about and it’s not getting better.

 

“Ben,” she says quietly, sitting on the opposite side of countertop he’s working at, propped on her elbows and watching him chop the veggies under his hands to bits with a fervor. “I think the carrots are well and dead now.” She eyes him, setting the knife aside and her concern spikes. He is really on edge. “What’s wrong?”

“It’ll be fine, it’s no big deal,” he says curtly, staring hard at his precise two centimeter cubes of carrots.

“You’re _shaking_ , it’s not fine,” she presses, nodding to his hand that still tremors in the empty air, hovering over the food like he doesn’t know what to do with it now. “Tell me.”

“It’s just…” He sighs, deeply, and makes a fist, pulling it back and shoving it in his pocket, struggling to get the words out as he goes on. “I can’t _take_ this. I mean, I _can_ , I’ve got it, but I’m- I hate working with Hux. He’s a human pile of shit.”

 

As if something snapped saying it, he is propelled into action, gathering the pieces of carrot like a shot and carries them over to the pot on the stove where the water is bubbling in anticipation for something to boil. Ben returns to his spot, empty handed now and a little lost-looking.

“What’s he doing?” Rey asks evenly. She can imagine it’s not nice things, since they’re talking about Hux and a part of her doesn’t want to know, wants to pretend the man simply doesn’t exist but faced with Ben’s brittle nerves, she feels the overwhelming urge to help, to at least let him vent his frustration and make it a little better.

 

“Where to start?” he says and chops up an onion, like a champ, without shedding a tear, if only by grim determination. “I keep getting dangled on a string, for one thing. It’s busywork, not enough to actually get anything good.” He goes on about the shit jobs Hux has him do, a little rambly and haltingly, pacing a bit between the pan and the cutting board, though he’s just waiting for the onions to soften up in the butter at this point before he can do anything more. “And he’s just such a smug shit, working with these people like he raised them from birth to do his bidding. Treating me like it should be a fucking _privilege_ to work with him again, like it’s not the shittiest thing in the world.”

 

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she feels genuinely guilty. She has pushed for this, half bullied him into working with Hux, for her mission, for her benefit and consequently putting the man she claims to love through hell every day. “I’m sorry you have to put up with him.”

“It’s what’s necessary,” he shrugs it off and he’s keeping the silently-suffering-hero-voice pointedly down. “I can deal with a little hell for a while. I just might have to start going to a gym or something. I’ve never wanted to hit things so often.”

“I can still put some kickboxing moves on you,” and she is barely serious, just trying to lighten the mood, knowing there’s stuff he’s not saying that bothers him still and that any attempt of them to relieve some tension sparring would probably not end in accordance to their gingerly upheld chastity at any rate.

 

“I’m sure you could,” he smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes, only there to humor her and he works both hands into his hair, shuffling them around for a grip on himself. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”

It’s near painful, witnessing his distress, and it beckons her from her spot to cross around to his side of the countertop, until she just stands there, before him, close, straining to touch him but trying to keep to her self-imposed rules. “Ben. You don’t have to swallow this stuff down. Talk to me, that’s what partners do out in the field. Confide in each other...share the burden.” Her hand goes up to squeeze his arm but only for a fraction of a second, like the touch itself is an electric shock but she takes it in stride to offer a little bit of solace. “I’m here.”

He freezes at her touch, and then blurts this out, immediately looking like he wants to take it back. “He talks about you.” Like a whip, he darts to the stove, to mess with the food in the pan and the pot some more like he can pretend he didn’t say anything while Rey jumps up to sit on the counter, shoving the cutting block to the side to make room for her.

 

It’s not greatly surprising that Hux would talk about her, if only to rattle and provoke him, but it must be some horrible stuff if it works him up like this. “What does he say?”

His hands go to helpless fists, and it’s a visible struggle for him to speak, his back turned at her while he fiddles with the pan. “All this...disgusting… He talks about you like you’re just one of his whores, waiting to get fucked, and I can’t _do_ anything about it, because it’s all just a test to see how much I’ll put up with.”

“Get over here,” she says, aching to make it better somehow.

 

Ben doesn’t listen, lost in his own anger, stirring mindlessly and too violent as he continues. “Being _friendly_ with that- That _asshole_ makes me want to crawl out of my skin,” he hisses, eyes narrowed at the innocent pan. “Or take Hux out of his. He deserves it.”

“Ben, come here,” she repeats, more pointed. “Come to me.”

His head ticks up, and he stays motionless for a moment, debating visibly before relenting. He may be slow in coming, his motions controlled, but his eyes give him away as they always do, swirling with dark emotion that’s only betrayed in the smallest trembling of his hands. Those hands hover, unsure, as he makes his way to her in small steps, nowhere near the length his legs could take, but hesitant to cross the invisible line built between them even at her insistence.

 

She raises her hands to his shoulder gingerly as soon as he is in reach, tugging at him because he is shivering with barely contained anger. “Hey, hey. Breathe.” She tugs enough to make him turn fully to her so his hip bones are connecting with her knees. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”

With his chest deflating a bit, his hands twitch up like he’d like to touch her but he rests his palms on her knees instead and takes a deep breath. “I know. But I don’t want to think about it when we’re here. It’s hard enough doing it all day. I just want to keep it outside of that door.”

 

“I get that.” She really does and it makes her smooth out his shoulders, trying hard to put her heart into the pressure on him, wanting to brush out of them what sits there like the weight of the world. “It’s just not so healthy to bottle it in.” He closes his eyes, ever so briefly and she likes to think it’s because he’s calming down. “I fucking hate the bastard. I’ve half a mind to cross the river and punch his stupid ginger face in.”

“I’d like to see that, trust me. But whatever it takes, right?” He’s looking her full in the face now, earnest and wavering at the same time, looking like he seeks to gain her assurance, her approval, something to let him know he’s doing the right thing, that it’s all worth it.

 

It’s simultaneously killing her and keeping her alive, soaring somewhere above her own body. This is the same man who just a month ago couldn’t be bothered to call the people his organization hurts human and now he is spending day in and day out with the one sod he hates most on this earth and takes responsibility, wants to prevent the horrible things Hux is setting into motions, rising up past his life and his crimes and she loves him all the more for it. It pulls at her, seeing him like this, not just in her chest and between her legs, it’s an all encompassing need to touch him, body and soul. She tries to breathe through it, to keep from latching on to him but it’s no use. He’s right there and she can give him something, something nice so he feels better, how can she keep from doing that?

 

She opens her legs so he half-falls against the counter and easily into her embrace. It’s just a hug. It’s innocent. It’ll be fine, she can contain it. It’s for him, so he has someone who cares give him a little bit of affection just as much as it is for her throbbing heart, getting to at least feel him close for a moment.

“You’re doing so well,” she mutters, her mouth dry as the desert when his arms hang loose for a second and finally settle, closed fists on the countertop on either side of her.

“I just need it to be enough,” he winces. “I can’t- It’s too big to fuck up.”

“Shhh,” she mumbles instantly, hating the doubtful note to his voice and one hand flies into his hair all on its own to soothe, almost motherly, but once she has started touching, she can’t stop, especially when he shudders as she rakes her fingernails across his scalp. “It’s more than enough, you’re doing great.”

“I hope so,” he sighs, holding onto her hips in the most careful grip, like he could break her if he pushed too hard.

 

He smells like laundry, just-washed hair and man, clean and tantalizing and it does things to her she can’t ignore. It’s a hunger so consuming, the food on the stove could never begin to sate it and she wants more, just a little tiny bit to last her a while longer. She turns her head, just so, brushing his ear with the corner of her mouth and breathes in deep, inhaling his scent and trying to commit it to eternal memory.

“Rey?” He asks under his breath, running his hands up her body so he’s actually holding her and everything sizzles, from her groin to the tips of her fingers in his hair. “What are you doing?”

 

“Just let me -” she starts, rocking forward against him, just to pull him in a little more before she can let go. When she breaks away it’s a feat, aching and feeling herself slip into a dizzy sort of craze. She needs to back out now. But then again, where’s the harm in just one more little thing? Just a quick indulgence can’t be that bad, can it? She hovers close, holding on to his head, his face flush and blazing. The words come out on their own. “Do you think I could...do you think I could kiss you, just once?”

Ben is quiet for a heartbeat, then he leans into her, slowly so she can pull away if she changes her mind and tips his head so his lips are a hairsbreadth away, his shallow breathing crossing her lips as he stays there, waiting for her to close the gap.

 

She moves slow at first, honestly intending to just brush her lips against his but then she, pathetically quick, gets in over her head, kissing him harder, in what was supposed to be an afterthought. Still, when he moans ever so softly, she pushes back, harder yet, wedging his mouth open for her. This is fine, she can stop this, just a little more and she’ll be good.

 

She’s not, not by a long shot and he follows her lead, not even pretending that he wants this to end and she doesn’t stop touching him at all. ‘Just one kiss’ becomes a ridiculous lie, pushing and pulling at him until there is no humanly possible way to get him closer without taking his clothes off. So she tries that too, frantically, sneaking her hands down his back and pulling at the fabric.

 

Only then does he pull back, growling like it’s the most difficult thing he’s ever done, and he can only get the smallest space between them, looking at her like she is torturing him. “Rey.” And then he leans back in to nudge his forehead against hers, eyes open and meeting hers, questioning without words. She knows what he means, can feel the build up echoing back between both their bodies and an endless feedback loop. He’s so close, he’s literally right there and she could have him. She shouldn’t, she should stick to her resolutions. But then again, when have they held up with him in the past? Ever?

 

So she nods, the first dip slow, the next increasingly frantic. She needs him. Just one more time and it’ll be fine. She’s done it before, she’ll do it again, it’ll be alright. It’s not smart but it’ll be alright. Breaking her rules is stupid and ruinous. But that can’t stop her now.

“Okay,” he sighs into her. “So we’re doing this.”

“One last time,” she whispers, kisses him quickly and talks half into his cheek. “Just once, okay?”

“One last time,” he says and it sounds like he knows they might as well be lying at this point. Swiftly, he withdraws his arms to shrug the shirt up over his head and comes back to hold her face in his hands. He really kisses her now, a lead in to the more that’ll follow and she breaks away only so long it takes to get her own shirt off and fumble with the buttons of her pants. But because she’s slightly trembling and her heart beats uncooperatively up to her throat, she can’t get them off on her own.

“I got you,” he says, smiling small, affectionately, and reaches around to help her, offering up his shoulders for her to support herself on to get her hips lifted enough out of the way, and then follows them to the floor.

 

He stays there, on his knees and quirks an eyebrow up, silently asking if she wants him there or to stand for her. Rey can’t quite make up her mind, but then again if this is the last time, like it really should be, she’s not gonna say no to that. He looks very pleased and gets to work with all the enthusiasm of a man dying of thirst who finally gets his hands on a well. He consumes her until she’s dissolving into his blood, beating to the rhythm he’s setting, until all that’s left is to scream his name and beg him to stand. He moves with grace and skill and kisses her like it’s the last time and that thought alone breaks her.

 

After, she feels heavy on the countertop and slightly uncomfortable in her cooling sweat, slick and damp all over with her forehead on his shoulder and her arms around his frame. “How long do I get to hold you?”

“I don’t know,” he huffs, light and even happy. “You make the rules in this house.”

“I think I can hold you for a while,” she states, opting to forego her early-onset guilt and bask with him some more. And then, if she’s basking already, she can get the most of the afterglow still. Softly, slowly, she kisses the dip between his shoulder and neck, the spot is so sweet and so close, she couldn’t really help it if she tried. “Is that okay?”

 

“My legs work alright,” he says, stroking his fingertips up and down her back. “I’ll let you know if that changes.” It won’t change, she knows. He’d stand there until his bones eroded if it meant he could hold on to her and she’d thank him for it. She means to, in her way, kissing up and down his neck in pace with her arms running low and wide across the dips and planes of his body and maybe she was lying when she said that last time was over. If they’re still naked, technically, they could go on. Rounds were not specified in their agreement. If he would have her again, it’ll still count as one time. It would have to. That would be alright, surely. And his muscles tense when she runs her arms further down, pressing against his hips, stopping only when he’s all but in her hands again. She nudges his head, like he did hers before and he stops breathing.

 

“Yeah?” It’s barely a whisper, accompanied by a sharp inhale and his hips bucking forward, up, so she feels soft, warm and wet skin against the side of her hand.

“Yes,” she nods and twists her wrist so he falls into her grip, closing around him and moving immediately. “Fast or slow?”

He kisses her hard, groans into her mouth, and bites her lower lip before he can speak again. “Fast.”

 

She complies, working him up again and he gets harder beneath her fingers, panting and sliding his hands under her thighs, working her forward to make her hook her legs around his hips. Like that, she has to pause her affections at his middle and he lifts her up, turning, and she guesses his intent to carry her to the bed.

“No. Too far,” she says quickly, she doesn’t have time for this. “Floor.”

He responds with wild enthusiasm, grabbing her shirt and pants from the ground as he lowers her down and spreads them out to somewhat cushion her head and bottom.

 

“Shit, Rey, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he gasps, running his hands down from her chest to her legs in a quick swipe, not dwelling on it much, as if he’d love to be inside her again right this second.

“Take your time,” she nods, wanting this to last. It’s one last time, again. And she wants to get the absolute most out of it.

“Don’t wanna.” He obviously has no interest in more build-up. He still slows down enough to put his mouth on her breast, his hand playing with the other one, making these ridiculously pleased noises into her skin that get her basically drunk on him all on their own. She grabs his ass, drawing him in close and a name leaves her lips that’s a thing of the past really but the safety and care it calls to mind is a current, a real thing again.

“Benny,” she breathes and he halts on her body, for just a second.

“Ben,” his voice is flat and muffled by her skin. “M’not sixteen.”

 

“I can call you whatever I want,” she hisses, withdrawing her hips from where he was about to push back into her. He said she made the rules in this house and she wants this one, the right to give him names, as many as she damn well pleases, names that are hers, only hers to use and to wear out. She wants more of them. All of them. Any variation. Maybe he gets that because he kisses her hard, on the mouth and then pulls back to smile widely and wickedly.

“Yeah,” he says. “So long as you scream it.” And then he puts his hand between her legs, going straight for her clit like a man on a mission.

 

“BEEP BEEP BEEP.” A shrieking, disgusting alarm bursts into their heavy breaths and Rey notices dimly that something smells like it’s burning and there’s potentially a small fire licking from the pan on the stove. Given the circumstances, she should be a lot more rattled, a bit more like Ben who’s jumping to his feet with a curse on his lips but she can’t quite wiggle that emotion from the clutches of arousal and frustration of having to spare him so he can keep the apartment from going up in flames.

 

She stays exactly where she is, splayed on the floor and moves only to catch his ankle after he’s pushed the whole pan into the sink and the water hisses on the burning oil.

“Get back here. We’re not done,” she bellows up at him and he looks down at her like she’s insane, the alarm too loud to think.

 

***

 

 _It is absolutely not fair that Kylo is being asked to choose between Rey, naked on his floor, and dealing with the fact that they completely forgot dinner and let it get burned. If it weren’t interrupted by such a banal annoyance, he could almost think this whole scenario is a very good dream. He’s obeyed her wishes and kept away and Rey was the one to cross that line, finally gave him that clear-cut_ yes _he’d wanted and set the same old fire under his skin and let it burn. And now, like the metaphor from hell, his food burned up as well._

 

_“My kitchen’s on fucking fire,” he says, after a moment’s agonized pause staring between the blessing that is Rey and the blackened proof of his cursed luck. “Gimme a minute.” How is this even his life? He mentally bitches about it, ignoring his dick while he tries to shut off the goddamn fire alarm. He’s a grown man, dammit, and someone who people find intimidating at that, and here he is, about an inch too short to turn off his screeching alarm high on the wall and have sex like a normal damn person._

 

_“Just fucking throw it out the window,” Rey says, impatient, and that’d be a great idea if he could reach the thing. He glances down for a second, intent on telling her as much, but she’s just...so naked and right there and getting rid of the distraction is infinitely more important than having a contest with her about who can be more snarky. He grabs the nearest utensil, a spatula, and pries the lid off with the end of it, popping out the battery and letting it hit the floor._

 

_The deafening silence makes the clatter even louder as it drops and the spatula is flung away, somewhere, Kylo doesn’t care. Far more important is that he gets back to Rey as fast as humanly possible, biting under her jaw and lifting one leg so her knee rests over his elbow. She might mutter something like ‘finally’ but he ignores it in favor of sucking an ill-advised hickey into her throat. He might get in trouble for that, though the reasons vary. Either Rey means it when she says it’s the last time, and he’ll be jealously fond of the reminder that it at least happened, and she’ll hate it. Or this is just as useless a declaration as before, and he’ll be stuck waiting for Rey to touch the bruise and probably set them both off again._

 

_It’s just a detail, in the long run, a small moment before he’s buried in her, watching her hands slip on the tiled floor as he drives into her. She finally grabs onto him instead, and they almost reach violence, hanging onto each other. He does make her scream eventually. He can’t recall what exactly it was she was screaming, just that he’d been choking for breath, sweaty and satisfied listening to her climax while his own orgasm punched into him. His knees ache afterward, kneeling on the tile as he has been, but it’s worth it - it always is._

 

_It becomes somewhat of a rite, when he nudges his forehead against hers like before, a wordless way of asking if she’s sure and her nodding a breathless consent. Everytime, without fail. At the beginning they last longer without, another two days after what she called “one last time”, until he’s tempted to tell her “You said that last time” whenever she tries to tell herself it won’t happen again. He only doesn’t for fear of her stubborn streak keeping her away to spite him. It’s never the last time, but it always feels like it might be with how badly Kylo wants her to be lying._

 

_He cherishes every moment of their shared weakness, doing everything he can for her in every way possible. They go at it from every angle and every pace and in any spectrum of human emotion. Once, after a stupid fight he quickly forgets the reason for, she rides him so hard, halfway through he thinks she’s gonna break his back and he’s got actual bleeding cuts from her fingernails by the end of it. One of his favorite times is when she leaves him with the words “I’m taking a shower” and the bathroom door stays deliberately ajar. He follows, of course, and takes her so slow and gentle he feels like his body shatters just from restraint to the sound of her soft moans. After that, he only feels truly whole when he's inside her._

 

_As for Rey, she comes alive under his hands, the sadness that creeps into her eyes over the days working with Phasma cast out when she lets him touch her. His own frustration with Hux gets left behind in the wake of how it feels to have her, one last time or not. She continues her game of pushing him so very close to the edge but then snatching him back, not only because they’re indulging her kink but because she wants the exploits to last. One time, bent over the sink just a breath after he woke up, they race to the finish so quickly, despite morning-tired limbs, she pouts after and won’t stop touching him, laboring like a crazy woman on her knees until she’s all but sucked the marrow from his bones._

 

_Every day, the scope of what he feels for her seems to grow, impossibly and infinitely, and it scares the ever living shit out of him. She was right when she decided they shouldn’t. She was right when she prophesied this would kill them. It does, inch by inch, sigh by sigh. They’re dancing on the edge of a volcano, throwing dynamite into the pit. It’s reckless abandon that drives them into each other’s arms and there is nothing to stop them except themselves. And they rise after each time to fail again._

 

_After a week of this, he makes it back home, a predictably awful day behind him, and his phone rings in the hallway, before Kylo can even make it to the door. It’s Hux, calling on Phasma’s advice. He has a job for her, important and urgent. Urgent as in ‘Get ready and drive to Staten Island in the matter of hours’. Rey has been planting the idea that she ought to work more closely with Kylo so they can have better chances of collecting the kind of evidence she needs, but what Hux wants her to do isn’t what either of them wanted._

_It’s an aspect of the business Kylo has never been privy to himself, auctioning off young women to the kind of bidders who can afford to purchase_ people _instead of just moments with them. Kylo has no idea why a female auctioneer would be advantageous - maybe to put the pigs at ease - but it’s an in, and Kylo recognizes Phasma’s misguided attempt at helping, so he grits his teeth and agrees on Rey’s behalf._

 

_It would never occur to Hux to ask Rey herself, that much is clear from how he treats Kylo like her handler, or like her owner. The thought makes Kylo want to let Rey have a few rounds kicking Hux’s ass to show him just how capable she is of handling things herself. It’s a comforting fantasy to imagine Rey wiping the floor with Hux’s face, and it carries him inside and through the explanation of Rey’s assignment._

 

_***_

 

“He wants me to _what_?” Rey asks, incredulous, and waits for Ben to tell her she heard wrong. Yes, the plan was to get her somehow involved in the trafficking operation but she was thinking something on the lines of driving cars or following Kylo Ren around to wherever it is he goes. She has not expected to be asked to serve as the host of a glorified human yardsale. She doesn’t want to either but she doesn’t have a choice. It’s a solid in and if Hux is willing to bring her on board in any capacity, she needs to take that opportunity, no matter how soiled, and not look back.

 

“How does it work?” she asks Ben some time later, when she’s already dressed and in the process of tucking up her hair.

“I’ve never been to an auction before. When I worked on this side of business in Miami, the Order wasn’t quite so... _preemptive_ ,” he says grimly. “The girls that reported to me sold themselves, we didn’t sell them.”

“The good old days,” she says, dripping with sarcasm and fastens the last bobby pin into what hopefully looks like a timeless, graceful updo. The dress code is classy luxury, or so Hux had said, and she isn’t going to disappoint, as much as she hates it. It feels like an absurd version of the first day at a new job and the familiar flutter of nerves feels so wrong, she half wants to spit. Her dress sparkles a bit, it’s the most expensive one Ben’s got her, embroidered with sparkling stones, ankle-length and in a soft beige that looks far too innocent for where they’re about to go.

 

She’s quiet on the way over to the Staten Island villa that houses the auction. They have to take the long way across the bridges because Ben doesn’t do ferry controls. It’s not a bad thing however, because Rey is in no hurry to actually get there. Still, even that passing grace ends and when an eager valet half jumps in front of Ben’s sports car to drive it into the lot, Rey feels like she’s got brimstones in her belly, pulling her down and making her sick. Her ugly discomfort is in stark contrast to the objectively beautiful location. A vast, regal manor towers over them, two large stories high and massive, covered in ivy and wild grapevines. Above the giant entrance sits a balcony held up by pillars and Rey would feel like a princess walking through below it, were it not for the fact that she is about to sell some complete strangers, actual human beings, to the highest bidder.

 

Inside, there is already a little commotion, about twenty or so men in expensive suits cluttered about, drinking champagne that is continuously being served by waitresses in little black dresses. Two of them Rey remembers seeing at Hux’s and it’s weird to think of them as the lucky ones tonight. They’ll walk away with maybe one or the other customer or maybe a bruise here or there, but at least they’ll walk away.

“Hux wasn’t kidding when he said high society, huh? Are you guys secretly advertising in Forbes Magazine?” Rey whispers to Ben after he’s caught two flutes of champagne from a passing tray and he purses his lips at her before he answers.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if they did via code,” he says, glancing around the room. “If you recognize anyone, don’t let on.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Rey says, hoping it sounds like ‘duh’.

 

They walk around the foyer, drinking their champagne and it’s expensive and good but could as well be entirely tasteless, there is nothing pleasurable about this luxury, it’s paid with blood money with the sole purpose of making more. She loops her arm through his because save for the waitresses, she is the only woman in this place and it gets her little more attention than she would like.

“Everybody’s staring at me,” she mutters under her breath and then has a horrible thought. “Oh God, do you think they think we’re shopping? Together?” It doesn’t really matter at all what these fuckers think but still, she doesn’t want to be associated with any of them, as moot as that is because she’s there and well, she is involved and as associated as one can get.

“More likely they think you might be a preview,” he replies a resting scowl permanently on his face. “The help is rarely beautiful, but they know I’m just muscle. Previews are probably something to be stared after. Hux doesn’t strike me as the kind to show anything before it suits him.”

 

“Is this okay?” She asks him after she tugs him closer, feeling slightly more at ease there. “Am I yours in here?” And she is legitimately asking how he wants to play this, not trying to be coy or needy, just wants the plan, and really for him to say yes because heaven help her if one of these men makes so much as half a move on her, she’s going to commit murder.

“Yes,” Ben says quickly, putting his arm around her shoulder and not even pretending not to be possessive. “You’re not for sale, no one needs to think that, either. You’re just playing a pleasant voice, as far as I’ve been told. And that better be fucking it.”

“You think Hux is still angling for me to join his enterprise?” Rey eyes him, looking for his reaction to her question.

“I don’t know,” his voice thick with frustration. “I’d like to say he’s playing at it to fuck with me, but I don’t know where his sadism ends and the money grubbing begins.”

 

This less than pleasant assessment hangs between them until the silence is being interrupted by a waitress with a tray of hors d'oeuvres and Rey thinks she knows her from Hux’s place, what was it? Charlotte, Shana? She smiles right through them, so trace of recognition on her face and Rey barely wonders, considering how high she’d probably been that night. The tray is full of caviar on bread and fish and cheeses and it looks delicious but Rey doesn’t even have the shred of an appetite and so she declines. Ben does too, he looks like he might never feel like eating again as they watch the guests eat to their heart’s content, chatting and lounging and moving about the place like it’s a business function or some pristine event. It’s sickening, this air of wealth, status and superiority when they’re all here to buy actual human beings for god knows what purpose.

 

“This is ridiculous,” she says, frowning over at a group of stinking rich looking dudes laughing about some pretentious jokes she wants to forget really fast. “They’re acting like we’re at a Captain’s Dinner.”

“What do you expect?” As Rey is increasingly bothered, Kylo seems to become increasingly quiet and tense, the violent response to her horror, by the looks of it. “They have more money than god, everything is a fucking vacation for them.”

 

She wants to answer him with something to lift his spirits, if only, marginally, but is cut short by a person suddenly in their way, tall and ginger, shooing off a waitress like she’s an annoying fly.

“Here she is, our brand new MC and her bodyguard,” Hux bellows, his chest so wide and puffed, it’s disgusting. He must feel like the true sovereign of this whole appalling farce, completely in his element and is almost charming for it. In a twisted idea of chivalry, he grabs her hand to put a chaste kiss on it, like they’re in some Jane Austen novel. “It’s really a shame we’re going to put you in a dark booth where no one can appreciate you.”

Instantly dumbfounded, like a fish on land, Rey has no words for a second, shell-shocked by that thoroughly ill-fitting display to even pull her hand back.

“Oh, trust me, she’s been plenty ‘appreciated’ already,” Ben says, or rather Kylo Ren does because Ben would hopefully never. He’s playing with the baby hairs on the back of her neck, more pressure than needed and that gives his tension away. She wonders what he dislikes more, talking about her like that or talking about her like that in front of Hux in a tone that suddenly communicates cameraderie. It’s all for show but she hates it none the less.

 

She hates that she feels like she’s the butt of a lewd joke while she is literally standing right there, so much it makes her spine crack upright and Ben must notice that she’s about to do something really stupid like tell them both to fuck off, because he runs his hand down to the back of her neck and taps it twice. _Play along._

 

Rey takes a deep breath, summoning her calm at will and swallows her dignity. “Boys.” She says the following with a mock-chastising tone to Ben that he will be able to know for blatant sarcasm but Hux will be none the wiser. “Is this really the place to discuss our nightly exploits, darling?”

“I see you taught her some fancy words,” Hux notes, jumping in and obviously back to treating her like some sort of monkey again. So things are still halfway right in the world apparently.

“Yes, well,” Ben starts, pulling Rey back subtly so there’s a bit more breathing room between her and the other man. “If you want an MC, you aren’t exactly looking for an ignorant fool, are you? Phasma wouldn’t have vouched for her if she was a simpleton.”

 

She is still _literally_ right there. She hates this so much; how he talks about her in third person while she could easily have spoken for herself and she knows he doesn’t mean it, to talk to Hux like she is somehow impaired by gender alone, but she can’t help feel horrible. Because Hux doesn’t know he’s lying. Hux doesn’t know Ben respects her the way he does, is half terrified of her and would never ever treat her like that in earnest. Hux thinks this is the truth and the natural order of things; men talking over women like they’re accessories, warm bodies to put stuff in, one step above dogs, probably.

 

“Fair enough,” the ginger says and then looks down at his rolex. “It’s time to get you set up. If you’d follow me.”

“Can I just have a second?” Rey asks, sweetly, trying hard to sound like an absolute ditz. “Kylo, will you help me with my dress, I think something came loose. We’ll be right back.”

Ben nods and leads her away without checking to hear Hux’s answer. The other man is going to have to accept it and she has the distinct feeling of being watched as she steps pointedly ahead with subdued anger. She ducks into the nearest empty corridor and the first unlocked door in that. It leads to a vacant sitting room, dark in the night and no one is here to disturb them for a second.

 

“I _hate_ when you talk about me like that,” she says, not really an accusation, just stating her emotions because she doesn’t want to carry them with her into what’s ahead. Looking up at Ben, who’s followed her on the foot, she can how close he is to snapping, his lack of self-control showing in both his frozen features and the tremor of his hands in fists by his sides. “I know. I’m sorry.” He sounds like he hates everyone in this building and himself most of all. She relents in the face of this and gives him a gentle shove until his back connects with the door so she can push herself up to her tiptoes to kiss his mouth.

 

It’s a thin hard line, and he doesn’t respond long enough that she sinks back to her whole feet and looks up at him, quizzically. “I just need a little bit of truth before I bullshit my way through this shit show.”

He’s nodding, reining himself in by what must be force. “Okay. Yeah,” he mutters and leans down to kiss her jawline first, light and quick, then up to her mouth, slow and drawn out and almost aching, as if he’s drawing from her the one good thing in his sight so he doesn’t lose it. “You are brilliant and brave and I am so sorry for how much this is probably going to blow.”

“I don’t wanna go out there again,” she whispers, broken slightly open by his kiss and it’s the honest to god truth. She knows it’s not gonna happen, though and because that’s horrible, she kisses him again, harder this time, like they’re at home and she’s going for another last time.

 

When he eventually backs off, they’re both equally breathless and wishing to be anywhere else. “Just one night, okay?” Ben says. “And you at least get to know those douchebags won’t be seeing you for most of it.”

“And I’ll write down every last fucking name.” Somehow this helped tremendously, like a whip or a charm and she can go out there now and face the dragon she is about to become. She just wants one more little thing, something tiny to take with her.

“One more. For good luck. And your peace of mind,”  she says focusing on his lips because she can tell he’s struggling just as much as she is.

The kiss she gives him is incongruously innocent, the kind of kiss a married man would give his wife at the door, too comfortable by far for their circumstances and it simultaneously elevates and crushes her. She wants him so badly it pierces like daggers, all over.

“Good luck,” he whispers.

“I love you,” she shoots and heads out the door before he can do or say anything. She doesn’t want him to feel obligated to react in any way and telling him she loves him, although it’s true, is still technically kinda crossing the lines she set. Yes, they’re bullshit lines because she keeps crossing them to sleep with him, unable to keep to her “one last time’s” any more than she could stop breathing - but not for lack of trying. It’s just no use, really. She’ll always end up back in his arms, finding one or the other reason to justify it to herself. Because he looked so sad or so happy, because she was feeling down because everything is horrible or she broke a nail or whatever. She won’t run out because she’s very willing to believe her own white lies and any reason’s a good enough reason, as far as she is concerned. And at times like these, indulging her feelings for him, mentally as well as physically, is really the only thing that gets her through the day.

 

Hux waits for her in the foyer and leads her through the house, up a massive staircase and into a giant hall of a room, that seems to have been transformed into a kind of atrium for the express purpose of holding an auction like this. From the second story of the house where they are right now, a sort of mezzanine spans the entire room in an octagon shape. There are little cabins all around the railings, japanese doors secluding spaces big enough for one person to comfortably sit, each one equipped with a button and by the looks of it, one waitress to serve five bidders each. At their seats, they have a perfect view down into the pit - the first floor where some sort of stage is lit in soft light and security details dressed in the same non-descript black suits Ben is wearing on outings like this. He is there too, on the other side of the mezzanine watching Hux lead her across the place to a booth, a hole in the wall shrouded in darkened glass and with an almost hidden door. Rey too can see everything in the pit down there perfectly as well. She wouldn’t need or want to.

 

“Below is where the merchandise will be presented,” Hux tells her, gesturing into the void as he lets her into the booth. There’s a mic and a single piece of paper on the desk. “This is your factsheet, you read out the text each time a girl is presented, then you state the opening bid. You see the highest bid pop up on that monitor over there and read that out too. Try to keep up, I want no distractions from the shopping experience. I mean it, I don’t want you stuttering. When you get the signal, start counting down, yadda yadda, you know the drill.” And with that he leaves her like this is the point where she’s suddenly boring him.

 

She sits down on the chair, which is comfortable enough and glances over the sheet, trying not to throw up. A while later, the monitor flashes: “Auction starting in 1 minute” and when that clock has ticked down, she punches the button on the mic and reads from her page. “Welcome gentlemen to our quarterly auction. Please place your drink orders with our lovely consorts this evening and let the bidding begin.”

 

She thinks her voice is even enough and so far, she hasn’t stuttered at all, but she does stop breathing for a second when the first piece of “merchandise” as Hux calls it is led to the stage. She’s vaguely Asian and definitely drugged to the point of stumbling and she has trouble standing on the high heels they have her wear. Rey would put her in her mid-twenties and Hux and his minions have put her in a ridiculous two piece, a lacey tasteless bit of lingerie that screams hooker in a way that’s strikingly out of place in this beautiful house.

 

“Item Number One,” Rey reads from the sheet, trying hard to sound unfazed but her voice catches twice while she speaks. “Half Chinese, half Russian, speaks English and Chinese, plays the piano. Bidding starts at eighty-thousand dollars.”

 

While the first bid pops onto the monitor, Rey announces it and thinks how horrible it is that there are actually humans on this earth that put a price tag on a life and even more people who are willing to pay it. The bids get higher and higher until she has to count down for the first time and she is already trying not to cry, desperately trying to keep her cadence in check.

 

What’s worse than the girls getting younger and thus apparently more expensive is that with each one, Rey’s voice gets calmer and more used to the numbers and vernacular of the auction. It does nothing to steady her heart or make her feel less nauseous about the whole thing but she sounds like it’s no big deal and that makes everything so much worse. When her list, aptly titled ‘Round One’ is at an end, she reads the last blib there: “This concludes the sale for round one, you can collect your purchases at the end of the auction.”

 

***

 

_Kylo is not the only man asked to take security detail among Hux’s guests, but he is the most mobile. He circles the assembled crowd at their backs, ostensibly keeping the guests and the ladies serving them in line as per the house rules, the floor laid out so Kylo can keep an eye on all the patrons fairly well from any given vantage point. He sees it as a shooting gallery in his mind’s eye - the back of each shadowy head a target that he itches to shoot. His favored Taurus sits heavy in his jacket, not allowed out but oh so tempting._

 

_He hears Rey’s voice filter over the speakers, shaky and breaking on the first few girls up for purchase, but it smooths out over the course of the first round, coming back for the second with hardly a stumble to be heard. Something about it infuriates him more than he’d thought. Kylo should be able to handle this if she can, but his vision is swamped in red. The off-hand bidding and disregard for the people around them makes Kylo hate these men steadily more as it drags on. He’s stalking the room like a predator by the time the second round of bidding is in full swing, putting one or two patrons on edge when they catch his movement. He only stalls when Rey’s speech pauses, flinching when it comes back, deadened and impassive in ways it can only be because she’s too disgusted and sick at heart to be anything other than a robotic voice._

 

_His own reactions get carefully noted, catalogued, and pushed to the back of his mind. Kylo’s eyes are sharp on each man in sight, nearly praying for someone to lay hands where they don’t belong or start an argument so he has the excuse to mete out a punishment. He doesn’t get it. By the time Rey is announcing the last ‘item’ for sale this round, Kylo is in the most dangerous frame of mind he can be. He could shoot someone in cold blood right now and not care. He’s in a room full of human waste, their lives mean less than nothing to him. It’s only the tenuous thread attaching him to Rey’s voice that keeps him from slipping into the rolling, contemptuous boredom that invites bloodlust as a simple distraction._

_There’s an intermission of sorts between rounds two and three, from what Kylo can gather, an opportunity for the less obscenely wealthy to clear out so they don’t embarrass themselves being unable to afford the bids, as well as a moment to refill drinks and socialize. It encourages a bit of competition between bidders gloating over their purchases, and Kylo just bets Hux eats that up. It’s the perfect opportunity for Rey as well, evidently, as Kylo sees her small frame dart out of the sound booth and away down the hall._

_He takes the stairs and finds Hux on the landing, looking displeased with Rey’s disappearing act._

 

_“Fetch her, will you,” he says, sharp and terse. Hux spins on his heel without waiting, on the assumption his order will be followed or perhaps to find a replacement should Rey be especially uncooperative. Kylo ignores him in favor of following Rey’s exit. She’d better be alright. For one thing, Kylo will never forgive himself if this is the thing that breaks her, and for another, they are uncomfortably isolated here for his tastes. If she blows her cover or they look too suspicious to the wrong person, Kylo knows there are enough hired men here that it’s unlikely they’d make it out if it was decided he or Rey were a risk to the secrecy that’s been handsomely paid for._

_It’s not hard to figure out Rey’s path, the hallway she’d run down leading to a restroom that looks like it’s more fitting in an opera house than a private home. There are even stalls inside, just two, and Kylo can see Rey’s legs under the door of one. The sound of her retching echoes in the pristinely white and cream room._

 

***

 

“Rey?” A consolingly familiar voice calls her name, accompanied by hearty punches against the stall door. “You in here?”

“Go away,” is what she says first, because she’s vomiting her heart out and she’s disgusting but she doesn’t really want him to go at all. In fact, the only thing that could possibly make her feel a fraction better is him. “No, stay, sorry. Please stay.” She fumbles the door open, knowing that the way he’ll find her, crouched over the ceramic like a pathetic loser, is less than dignified but if he can handle her in every possible other scenario, he’ll handle her like this. And she doesn’t have the capacity to deal with vanity at any rate, because she remembers that last girl, barely twenty and a new wave of nausea makes her dip into the toilet bowl, keeling.

 

“Oh, Rey. Get it out.” He’s with her immediately, soothing over her back and holding the few stray strands of hair out of her forehead. “You’ll be alright.”

She retches once more, writhing until all that is left is bile and then she flushes, clears her throat and swipes across her mouth with a bit of toilet paper. Fumbling through her handbag, she produces her gum and chews on two pieces at once, before she even thinks to turn her head to Ben. She feels embarrassed and weak, crumpled on the floor as she is. Appropriately, he looks at her like she looks like complete shit and she doesn’t doubt it. Her mascara has probably run into panda eyes from exertion and half-cried tears and she wants to say something but sobs instead. He lets her have that first one, but they’re on a time crunch, she knows it as well as he does, and so the hand he rubs over her back is brisk. “Come on, it’s alright, you’re almost done. You can do this.”

 

“ _Nothing’s_ alright,” she snaps, but it’s more desperation than anger. Going into that booth, she’d really thought she could handle it, she really did but she was kidding herself, obviously and she wants to kick herself in the head. “I’m selling these girls. _I’m_ doing that.”

“Okay,” he says, soothing but pressing at the same time. “I know you don’t like it, but you _need_ to think about it some other way. Stop looking at them like girls. You can mourn them later, but if you don’t get back out there, they’ll be dead as surely as we both will be, and we can’t help anyone that way.”

 

As usual when it comes to coping with horrendous shit, he is right and she grabs his neck, hard, looking for strength, for his level of detachment to draw from it, channeling him until she feels his stubborn resilience like a second presence in her head.

“If there’s ever a good moment to make it look like an accident, I will kill Hux,” she says, dropping her hands, wanting her voice to be deep and grave like his and rises from the floor without help or support. She needs to keep going, to finish this. Her reflection in the restroom mirror is grim and determined but she still looks like she’s been through the wringer a couple of rounds. Her make-up is smeared all over her cheeks as predicted and she’s sweat away the powder on the hickey he left her with a while ago. She deliberates covering it up again but decides to keep it there, for everyone to see. She belongs to Kylo Ren, let that be known, to _Kylo_ , not the First Order. She doubts anyone will care but it’s more for her than them anyway.

 

“Keep your mind on that,” he replies, tender for a moment and after she drinks from the tap for a minute there, he moves in to fix her make-up and hair, fiddling with her curls the way he had when she was just a little girl. “You can cry when we get home, okay?”

 

She nods, steadfast if not by virtue of character than from spite and she practically stomps out ahead of him, feet heavy and sluggish because she doesn’t want to arrive where she is headed but powering on anyway. Ben is right behind her and she wishes she could take him with her into the cabin but she won’t dare ask.

 

“Look who decided to show up again,” Hux sneers when they’ve turned the corner to the atrium. “I thought I’d need to put Shannon in the booth.”

“Her name is Chanty,” Rey says, spitefully.

“I know,” Hux smirks, disgustingly smug and steps into her space to glance at her lips and smile lavishly. “I _like_ you.”

Wordlessly, Ben steps half in front of her, signaling Hux that it’s time to back off but his disturbing arrogant confidence still hasn’t faded in the slightest. If anything it only grew, emboldened him to strut around like he owns the place, which he sadly kind of really does and it’s sickening. And if she is barely containing her disgust and repulsion, she wonders how Ben does it. She can practically feel him booming with rage by her side and Hux just stubbornly doesn’t care.

 

“Relax, Ren,” he says, “I’m just admiring your taste.” Then he takes a step back which is well and good for him. “Now, back to your places, both of you. It’s time for the really juicy pieces.” And once Rey gets her hand on the new fact sheet, she knows what he meant. The five last girls on sale tonight are all ‘certified virgins’, automatically hundreds and thousands of dollars more expensive than the first and second batch.

 

Before the auction picks up again though, Hux puts his ginger head into her booth and she fights the urge to flinch and recoil into the corner.

“He didn’t knock you up, did he?” He asks, impertinent and rude and she can’t make out which answer he’d rather hear.

“None of your business, Hux,” she says, her face contorting into something she can’t even name herself. “And no.”

 

He leaves her with that to wonder what the fuck that was. But there’s something warm, raking its head inside her, something that lingers on the thought of having Ben’s baby and it’s silly and juvenile and there’s no place for it in any of this. But it helps getting her through the rest of the night, rehashing the higher and higher bids on those girls whose only value seems to be how much the men are willing to pay to take their virginity by force.

 

By the end of it, Rey feels hollow and used and half wants to call in the cavalry right then and there - or just get the gun she knows Ben carries and shoot up the whole place and break the girls out herself. She doesn’t. And hates herself with fervor the whole ride home until she’s about ready to combust.

 

***

 

_The door has hardly closed before Rey makes a beeline for the couch, collapsing onto it like all her strings have been cut. Kylo circles around it to find her with her head in her hands, crying in earnest._

_“Woah, woah, hey.” He goes to his knees, peering up at her with his hands hovering over her kneecaps. “Breathe.” He’s never been good with crying women, but he_ is _good with Rey, and she’ll listen to him, hopefully, instead of going into hysterics._

_She frees up her hands, pulling at his neck instead so she can drop her forehead against his, dragging their skin together as she speaks in a desperate, awful voice, “Make me forget. Everything.”_

 

_“I wish I could, I’m so sorry.” It feels like Kylo has been apologizing a lot recently, but it also feels like he should be apologizing a lot more than he has. “We shouldn’t have done that.” He shouldn’t have let either of them get sucked that far down. He’s been exactly the person she hates tonight, and he can’t even imagine how much she must hate what she’s done._

 

_“No, Ben. I need…” Her hesitant interruption of his thoughts comes with her hands falling away, stuttering down his neck and shoulders as she struggles. “...to feel something else right now.”_

_Her meaning hits him and makes him feel a sick twist of combined sorrow and desire. “Rey. No, you-” He breaks off, bringing a hand up to run his thumb along her jawline, curling his palm around her neck. She’s so small in his hands, in ways that make him feel protective like he hasn’t for anyone else in his life. “You’re upset.”_

 

 _“Please.” Kylo is helpless against her begging, grabbing at his shirt like she needs him. Her intentions are obvious, trying to reach between them lower, but his position knelt so close to her leaves her just frantically pulling at his shirt instead. “_ Please _.”_

_His hand around her neck shifts forward, holding her in place under her chin and calming her actions somewhat. The other hand moves to put her grip around his arm instead of digging at his clothing before he runs his fingers slowly up the inside of her thigh. “Okay,” he says, conceding and leaning in to kiss her where she’s held in his loose grip. “Okay, close your eyes. I want you to just feel me.”_

 

_“Talk to me,” Rey murmurs, nodding. “Nice things.”_

_“Of course.” He doesn’t say that the notion he might do anything else is a little heartbreaking. There’s no part of him that wants to say anything dirty or even sexy, really. He just wants to help put her back together, and if she wants him to touch her, he will. “You’re so soft, Rey,” he says, voice low and wondering, “So soft and so strong. You’re amazing.” His hand creeps further up her leg, following the silk of her skin in toward the heat of her, kissing her slowly as she spreads her legs for him like it’s a relief. “Want to touch you all the time, just look at you sometimes. You’re so_ bright _.”_

 

_Rey arches into his touch, humming and hardly getting out coherent requests, but it doesn’t matter what exactly she’s asking for, he’ll give it to her._

_“Anything you want, Rey,” he says, pushing her legs apart so her dress rides up. It gives him enough room to shift her underwear aside and out of the way to allow his fingertips to brush lightly over her, dipping inside the barest amount. “I’ll give you anything.”_

_“Don’t leave me alone tonight,” rushes out of her, quiet and pained._

 

_Kylo presses forward to kiss her hard, trying to communicate how badly he wants what he says to be true. “I won’t. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll stay right here.”_

_“Always,” she breathes, rocking forward and welcoming his touch deeper. “Benny, closer.”_

_He obeys, of course, slipping inside her and pulling back to watch her reactions, following her cues to build her up slow and steady. “Always,” he says, and it’s a lie, but it’s a good lie. They can’t have always, it’s not who they are, but now isn’t the time for reality. Rey asked him to make her forget everything and Kylo does his level best to do just that. The sex is decadent, there’s no other word for it. He takes the opportunity given to hold onto her and act like he’ll never have to let go. Kylo wraps himself around her, blocking everything of the world he can with body and mind, keeping up a constant commentary on all the things he loves about her._

 

_They go through the motions of their normal evening routine, Rey still somber beside him, but not as broken as she’d seemed when they set foot inside the apartment. When she’s finished brushing her teeth, Kylo takes her off her feet, carrying her to the bed and laying her down gently. She lets him, still as he pulls the blanket over them and gathers Rey into his arms in a futile attempt to shield her from all the things she’s seen and done._

 

_Rey’s voice is small when she speaks up, but again, he can at least sense she’s starting to piece herself back together. “I’m sorry for being such a mess.”_

_“I’m good at messes,” he says stroking her hair. “You’re allowed to have bad days.”_

_“No,” Rey insists, shaking her head vigorously. “I’m an agent, I trained for this, I’m strong. I should be...stronger.”_

 

 _“You_ are _strong, but you’re a person, not a fortress. You can’t be impenetrable all the time.” Kylo drops a kiss on her forehead, and it’s ridiculous how she can accept his faults and humanity but deny it for herself. Her heart is the best, most fragile part of her, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “If you could turn it off and not feel for those girls, you wouldn’t be the woman I- You wouldn’t be_ you _.”_

_Rey’s breath halts, and Kylo mentally kicks himself for his stumble. “What did you say?”_

_“You wouldn’t be you without this,” he says, a silent prayer that she won’t push. He frankly isn’t even sure why he stopped, only that he didn’t have any other words for her. “The things that make you feel weak are just as important as the fact you can toss me over your shoulder if you feel like it.”_

 

_Rey kisses him, softly, and she must not think she’s pushing, but he can feel her wanting more from him. “Before that,” she says when she releases him._

_“I said you’re not supposed to be perfect.” There’s only so many ways he can phrase it, he thinks, tightening his hold on her a little. “Imagine how bored you’d be with perfection.”_

_“I’ve been pretty happy with perfection so far.” Her voice is soft as her hand drifts to his hip, pulling him in toward her, thought there’s not much space left to cover between them._

_“You got a funny definition of perfect,” he laughs gently._

 

 _“Stop that.” Kylo is a bit surprised at her tone, almost chastising. “You’re the only thing that gets me through the day. That’s more than perfect to me right now. It’s everything, Ben, I_ mean _it.”_

_“Alright.” He kisses her, unable to give any other response for a second past the pressure high up in his chest. “I’ll stop if you promise you’ll forgive yourself for not being some kind of untouchable pillar of a person. Your heart’s too big for that.”_

_“What about yours?”_

 

_“Mine’s...tired,” he says after a quiet moment. “I’ve been doing this too long, Rey, my coping is- It’s not healthy.” In the darkness, wrapped around her, it’s easier to admit it, how he’s battered his own humanity for the sake of survival, leaving behind something he’s not sure entirely qualifies as a soul anymore. “The only way I got through this crap tonight was by imagining killing all those scumbags.”_

_“And yet they were there because the First Order sent out the invitations.” He’s not sure what Rey means to do, popping off that comment. Is he supposed to be taking responsibility for all the corruption in the world? She must want a broken man if that’s what Rey means for him to do._

 

 _“It’s wasn’t like this before,” he hisses, more frustrated and upset than even he’d thought he was. “We worked in the shadows, obviously, but we didn’t sell people, or not on this scale, not that I ever knew about.” There was a line, thin and wavering, but a_ line _between the prostitutes he’d managed and what had gone down tonight. “Snoke’s been getting involved in things that aren’t like him. We used to stick to the stuff people always get themselves into - drugs, gambling, fraud, a little extortion, but nothing like this.”_

_The tables have somehow turned, leaving Rey kissing the edge of his mouth, her kindness bringing him down somewhat in its comfort. “I know,” she says, giving him a real kiss. “I just...I want to get you out of there. Maybe when the time is right and I’ve got enough to take to the bureau, you can disappear.”_

 

_“I could,” he says slowly, thinking about it as a possible reality for the first time. They always would have found him if he’d tried to leave before. He’d barely gotten away with disappearing in Texas and that had been with a relatively small-time group, but if Rey can manage to dismantle the First Order, he could conceivably vanish. “What about you?”_

_Rey’s attempt at a nonchalant shrug is less than convincing. “I’ll be fine if I know you’re safe, out there somewhere.”_

_Kylo searches her face in the dark, harder to read with her features in shadow. She’s lying, and not well, but he’s not sure what it means. She’s said she loves him, but love is selfish and stupid, and Rey tries very hard to be neither of those things, though she often fails with him. This may be just another case of her being unable to let him go when logic says she should. Not that he has much room to speak._

 

 _“I don’t think I will be,” he says finally. “And what happens to you if I disappear? Who’s gonna make sure_ you’re _safe?”_

_Rey smiles weakly. “FBI agent, remember? I can look after myself.”_

_“You’ll be putting a huge target on your back when this comes to light.” Kylo frowns, turning the thought over and not liking what he finds in the possibilities. “The FBI is good, but we both know they’re fallible.”_

_“And you’d just add to that target,” Rey says, reasonably, though he doesn’t want to admit it. “Once this blows over, we can’t protect each other anymore. I just want - I_ need _you to be safe. I...I wouldn’t survive if you’d…”_

 

_Kylo can practically hear her thinking, imagining the worst case scenarios. He’s doing the same, thinking about how much he simply can’t disappear. Rey would take the fallout by herself if he does and he can’t let her do that. If and when it comes down to it, he’ll let them catch him. Rey may hate him for it, but with him around, she can stay out of the spotlight. The media will surely storm him, jumping at the story of a notorious turncoat, while Rey can fade into the background. She has friends who will take care of her if he can’t, and they’ll make her see it’s for the best if she lets him take the fall, he’s the one who earned it anyway._

 

_“I can take care of myself too, you know,” he says, breaking the silence that’s fallen between them._

_“I’m not saying you can’t.” Rey looks determined, cementing Kylo’s thought that he can’t tell her what he plans to do. “I’m saying please let me figure out a way to get you out so I can go on after. This is for me. I love you and I need you in one piece, away from here, when it blows up.”_

_“Okay.” His acceptance is almost punched out of him, hearing her say she loves him out loud no less shattering than the first time. “We’ll figure something out. Lord knows I have enough stashed away I’ll never had to work again.” He pauses, shifting them so his arm might be a little less crushed. “Remind me to tell you where all my backup cash is. It’s...extensive. Be a shame if the government got it all.”_

_“I’ll figure it out.” Rey sounds pleased, nodding along. She stretches up to kiss his temple, then pushes him over so she’s lying on his chest, his arms around her. She’s silent for long enough that Kylo starts to drift off, lulled by the feel of her heart beating against his skin and the warmth between them. When she asks, “Are you ever gonna say what you meant earlier?” he’s almost asleep._

_“Mm, what’re you talking about?” Kylo slurs, shaking off sleep only marginally._

_“You said because of my compassion, I was the person that I am, but before that you said it’s why you…” Rey trails off, killing Kylo’s ability to pay attention when he’s only barely awake anyway. “Do you? It would just...be good to hear it, if you did. Love me.” Her voice is tiny, but determined, and it wakes him up better than her earlier hesitance._

 

 _“I’m not...saying it because you need to hear it,” he says. He’s not sure he_ can _say it like that. “It doesn’t mean anything then.” If you have to ask for it, it’s worthless, meaningless unless it’s freely given._

_“So you don’t...feel that way?” The brittle tremor in her voice stings, and she’s so smart sometimes, but so stupid all the same. “I’m sorry, I don’t wanna push you, but I - I want to know. I love you and I want to know if you love me. For real.”_

_“I’ve never felt about anybody the way I feel about you,” he says haltingly, eyes trained on the ceiling. “It’s more than I ever thought I_ could _feel. I don’t know...if I know how to love somebody, but if I could- I’d love you.”_

 

_Kylo is shocked into being fully awake when Rey sits up on his chest, propped on her elbows and fixes him with this look like she’s trying to find something hidden between his eyebrows. It’s an uncomfortably intense look._

_“How does it feel when I touch you?” she demands._

_“Rey,” he starts, sliding his hands over her wrists. “It’s late, we shouldn’t get into this.” She ignores him, scooting up so she can dip her head and suck on his neck, pulling her hands from his lax grip. They travel over his body, tempting but it really is late. “Rey,” he tries again, almost pleading. It doesn’t stop her, instead climbing further onto him, thighs spread so she can roll her hips against his, kissing and nipping at his throat and jaw._

 

_“How does it feel?”_

_“Amazing, you know that.” His brain may be ready to sleep, but his body will always be a slave to her, already reacting to the way she’s grinding on him. “We’re gonna be up until dawn if you keep this up.”_

_“No, we’re not.” And she bites down on the low point of his neck, making him groan. “How does it feel when I’m gone?”_

_His arms fly up, unbidden, and wrap around her, the not-quite threat clogging his throat. “I hate it.”_

_“Good.” Her voice is almost as tight as his, sounding like she’s getting choked up as she brings her hand to his chest and pounds on it once, forcing a breath out of him. “Does it pull at you here when I smile? And when I’m sad?”_

_Kylo flattens his hand over hers, leaving them one on top of the other over his heart. “Always has,” he admits, meeting her eye in the dark._

 

_Rey kisses him quickly, barely there before she pulls back, eyes searching. “Do you want to leave here with me and never look back and spend the rest of your life with me,” she asks. “Knowing I’m safe and sound and happy with you?”_

_He knows where she’s going, of course he does, and like a coward, he gives her a joke instead of a real answer. “Rey, if you’re proposing right now, I really don’t think it’s the best idea. Our families would never approve.” It masks what he can’t say, that he’s not enough, he can’t give her the life she should have, she shouldn’t even_ want _him. She’s not in the mood for his deflection, evidenced by the way she doesn’t even get mad, just stares at him with tears gathering in her eyes._

_“Just say yes or no,” she says, half desperation. “Just tell me the truth.”_

 

_Kylo has had more than enough of her crying tonight, enough to last a lifetime, so he sits up. It dislodges her from atop his chest, gathering her up so he can hold her still and press his lips against the corner of her eyes as if it will halt her tears in their place. “Don’t -” he starts and stops. “Yes. There’s nothing I want more.”_

_Rey nods, swallowing before she can speak. “That’s how I feel, all of it. That’s exactly how I feel about you,” she tells him, hard-faced and stubborn. “And now you tell me if you really don’t know how to love someone.”_

_“I know how to love you,” he sighs, burying his face in her hair behind her ear. He’s not good at it, obviously, since Rey keeps ending up in tears, but he does love her, as terrible as he is at it._

_“Then do it,” she demands, grabbing hold of his head._

_“I am. I do.” She deserves better than this, to be trapped in love with him and living with the fact he loves her, and he says it so quietly it’s barely more than a breath. “I love you.”_

 

_Rey sighs, long and gusty, like it’s a relief to hear, and rocks against him, kissing him blind. When she backs away, she puts both hands on his cheeks, smoothing down until she’s caressing his sides, determination and her own personal softness in her eyes._

_“Thank you,” she says, meaning it._

_“It’s not a gift,” Kylo mutters, and it isn’t, it’s more like a curse. “It’s just true.”_

_“Don’t presume to know what this is to me,” she tells him, all authority. She puts a hand to his chest again, over his heart like she’s developing a fascination with it. “I feel it, too. Everything you feel.”_

_“God knows why,” he quips before remembering he’d told her he’d stop mocking himself. “I know, I’m just sorry it’s like...this.”_

 

_“Me too,” she says, dropping a kiss on his mouth. “But tonight, we’re here. Tonight, I just want to sleep in your arms, even if your limbs go numb and I run too hot. Can we have at least that?”_

_“Of course.” He has to kiss her, she asks for him to crack open his chest one minute and then for the most inconsequential things in almost the same breath. “Of course we can, come here.” He lays back with her, spreading them both out so their legs are tangled together and Rey is pressed to him head to foot._

 

_“Say it again,” she whispers, minutes later, and he’s not falling asleep yet this time._

_“I love you.” It’s easier the second time, not like he’s trying to force it to be enough, not like he’s trying to force everything he feels into three words and finding them unable to fit. “So much.”_

_“I love you, too.” Her accompanying kiss is a bare press of lips to the skin she can reach, more the convenience and comfort of touch than anything else. “Good night.”_

 

_He echoes her, though Kylo doesn’t sleep for a long while, turning over whether he’s done something good or just let her dig them a deeper hole. It was Rey wanting something from him and he is useless when it comes to not giving her what she wants, so there’s little he could do. The truth of it is a simultaneous weight and relief as he watches Rey sleep, relaxed and safe in his arms. If he’d let himself, he would have known he loved her long before now, and he doesn’t have to bite his tongue to keep it inside anymore. It’s another step toward ruin for them both, but though he tries, Kylo can’t quite bring himself to regret it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you remember that art I mentioned back in chapter two....told you we'd get around to it ;)
> 
> Each and every one of you is a delight for staying with us this far and getting through what is now over 100k words. Go team! 
> 
> As always, we love and appreciate your comments, and even more just the fact you've stuck around this long <3


	8. CHAPTER EIGHT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Ladies (and Sirs? Are men reading this? Shout out if you’re a guy reader, real quick!), we are back for another installment of pain and agony with Rey and Kylo Ren. Buckle in, this one starts sweet and then everybody starts making horrible decisions.  
> 
> We’re sorry in advance. And with this we leave you to read!
> 
>  
> 
> [SONG]: War Paint by Fletcher

 

**CHAPTER THREE: [We Push And Pull But I Know We’ll Never Break]**

 

Outside, the last couple of golden, sunny autumn days are taking a victory lap, the air already smelling of colder times ahead but through the crack in the window, the only foreboding of this is a light breeze that cools Rey’s warm body as she awakens slowly. She is tangled in their blanket and almost diagonally draped over Ben, legs crossing over his thighs and arm flopped on his stomach. She jerks, stretches more on instinct than conscious thought and growls and mumbles through gathering her wits from the grasp of sleep. She all but punches him in her shaking and he mumbles something unintelligible and twists as if he wants to go right back to dreaming. Rey apologizes, or at least thinks she does, but it’s merely more gibberish as she can’t get a coherent sentence out. To make a better point, she kisses the skin in reach, which is that of his wrist that she grabs because at least that she can do.

 

“Have to...geddup,” she mutters after a glance on his wall clock. “No,” he says, grabbing and gathering her up into his arms, pulling her in so her head rests on his chest. It’s too hot but somehow still not uncomfortable.

“Can’t sleep all day,” she yawns because it’s already well into noon and she glances over at his flashing screen on the bedside chair. “Phone.”

“Fine,” Ben says finally after a string of muttered swear words and flailing for his cell, squinting at the screen. “I don’t wanna deal with Hux,” he groans dropping back.

“Want me to talk to him?” she offers although she’d also gain no pleasure from it - hearing Hux’s nasal bitching before she’s even fully awake.

 

“Absolutely not,” Ben says in what some might call a petulant whine. “He can wait.” He tosses the phone away and turns to push further under the blanket, pulling it over them while snuggling his face into her hair. “Coffee first.”

“I was thinking a shower,” Rey says, trying to sound inconspicuous but the fact that she did not specify whom this shower should benefit should speak to her intentions sufficiently. Ben hums in reply and nods. He understood. And if nothing else could, this particular prospect rouses him enough to shove them both out of bed clumsily, his arms around her waist clingy and groggy the whole way across the room to his bathroom door.

 

In the harsh light in there, both of their reflections stare back at them puffy, squinty and horrible. Ben stands behind Rey, arms still around her and he has to hunch so that his head can rest on her shoulder while she fixes their toothbrushes.

“We look pretty chewed down, huh?” She sighs, trying to avert her eyes from the mess that is their hair.

 

“Chewed up and spit out, I’d say,” he makes it sound like this is somehow a compliment, turning his head to kiss her cheek. “Good call on the shower idea.”

“I don’t really care about the shower to be honest,” she shrugs, because it’s not tremendous news. “I just wanted you.” She puts the toothbrush in her mouth and holds his up for him to take. And so they brush their teeth together, so domestic it’s actually almost disgusting. She still kisses him, like they just can’t get any cuter and she’s happy, even with everything else going on. In this moment, she is happy.

 

“By the way, I think I do like you so far in the mornings, even without your first coffee,” she praises, smoothing out his sleeping T.

“You’re not people, you get special treatment,” he quips and gives her a slightly longer kiss. “Plus you _make_ me coffee.”

 

“Fair enough.” An easy smile tugs at her lips and she grips the fabric of his shirt tighter and up. “Shower. Now.”

“Yeah, yeah, you didn’t even want the shower, remember?” he says, undressing anyway, leaning past her to turn on the water to heat up.

“I want you in the shower, doofus,” she says and smacks him on the arm, stripping out of her pajamas and throwing them right on top of his. As soon as that is done, she climbs a bit clumsily into the tub, stepping under the spray and waiting for him to fiddle with the water some more. “Hotter.”

“Patience,” Ben says. He gets in after her, fitting badly with all his long limbs and her to share the space with and he seems even more gangly in his nakedness, like he is all extremities with a pair of overgrown ears. She loves it. “You know how long these pipes take to properly heat up.”

 

They stand there for a while, waiting for the water to get to their preferred temperature of scorching, and look at each other, tilting heads and squinting eyes in a wordless little conversation. She could jump his bones right then and there but then they should get the business of getting cleaned up out of the way before they do the dirty. Randomly, she plucks a shampoo bottle from the rack in the corner and opens the lid, about to put it in his hair when he takes hold of her wrist and the shampoo from her to go on and pick a different one from the side of the tub. “Not that one,” he says, nodding to the discarded product and motions for her to open up her palms so he can squeeze some of the apparently superior shampoo on them. She watches him intently as he puts the bottle back in place and then runs his fingers through his waves under the stream of water until they are pitch black.

 

“Okay, babe, you’re gonna have to get to my level real quick,” she says, standing there waiting with the shampoo in her hand but can’t really reach far up enough to work it in. He ducks down then, eyes closed and hands on her hips to keep balance while he can’t see. While she shampoos his hair carefully and watches him make those wonderfully pleased faces, she recalls that she just called him ‘babe’, the endearment novel to her vocabulary but feeling right on her lips all the same. She wants to kiss him but if she kisses him now, he’ll have shampoo on his head until they’re done and as adorable as it is, hair full of bubbles and foam, she can’t take him seriously like that.

 

“Now what?” she asks him, wondering if there is some additional hair priming he does - and there has to be because he’s got annoyingly gorgeous hair.

“Not rocket science, babe,” he mutters, eyes still closed, and him echoing her ‘babe’ gives her the fuzzies, straight from her dipping stomach to her core. She watches him straighten to tip his head back and rinse his hair, both hands massaging out the remains. “Want me to do you?” he asks when he’s through with that.

“Always,” she smirks and winks, turning around, so he has full access to her hair as well as whatever else he wants to touch on her backside.

“Is that so?” he murmurs huskily, tugging her against his front by her hips, connecting skin to skin and his breathing staggers when he presses his cock against her ass, hands travelling from her waist up across her ribcage.

“Yeah,” she breathes, bucking back into him as he ducks down to mouth at her neck and shoulders. Still, when she is about ready to make a hearty grab for his junk, he pulls back to sweep her hair all together over one shoulder and takes the shampoo she brought from home. She thinks she can see him smile slyly from the corner of her eye, enjoying how he can pay her back a little of her relentless teasing.

 

“How do you deal with this much hair?” He starts working it in, fingers massaging her scalp lavishly, decadently.

“Just,” she starts, having to pause to hum and sigh from the way his digits move against her head. “Nothing a good brush can’t handle. I could get used to my very own shower assistant though.”

“Oh, you think this is gonna happen on the regular?” At this point, he is kind of just playing with her hair, ostensibly backing up and pulling her with him to rinse it, but mostly standing there watching water run down her back and she catches him doing it, moving her body slower, more deliberate, so as to give him a tiny little show.

 

“No, we’ll save it for special occasions,” Rey looks at him over her shoulder, takes her hair from him and then just glances up, waiting for him to come and get it.

“Hey,” he turns her around to face him and then kisses her rashly, bending her nearly backward in the process. “You wanna run out the hot water?”

“Fuck, yeah.” And maybe that was a rhetorical question, but she doesn’t care, he gets a real answer and a sloppy, pushy kiss to make her point. She wants him under the warm patter of the shower until her knees buckle and he’s whimpered through his orgasm - and she’ll have that of him. She turns around again in his grip, putting her palms flat against the tiles and waits for him to follow.

 

He does, he always does, attaching himself to her, arms snaking around her torso and pushing lower to work his fingers between her legs exactly how he knows she likes and she starts rocking against him until he’s breathing raggedly and she can feel him go rock hard against her back. “Jesus, Rey, you’re killing me,” he whispers and then he’s pushed inside her, without pomp or spectacle, and all that’s left for her to do is meet his thrusts. Until it’s not enough and she grabs hold of his arms, digging her fingernails into the skin and tries to count the freckles, to keep from clawing at him. “Turn me around,” she says and he does, helping her get her leg wedged between their bodies, shin pressed against his chest and she fiddles with his wet hair under the hot water when he’s back at her again. He goes faster then, head sinking down onto her shoulder.

“Feel so good like that,” he mumbles shakily and bites down on her skin. She won’t be able to hold up much longer.

 

After, when she’s so dizzy, he needs to near-lift her out of the tub and the water has gone freezing cold, he stays behind, conditioning his hair, because “that is the most important part of the entire hair care process”. She chuckles softly the entire time she waits for him cross legged on the bed, wrapped in her towel with her hair dripping on his sheets. As soon as he emerges, just wearing his briefs, she tosses him her hair dryer and smiles brightly.

 

“Dry my hair?” she asks. “Get a taste of that breathtaking action while I text Hux?”

“What?” For a second he stares at her as if she’s finally gone insane, fiddling with the gadget but then he shrugs and walks over to her, crouching to plug in the thing. “How do I do it?”

“Not rocket science, babe,” she says, recalling to his earlier comment. “Come here, just aim the thingie at my head and wiggle it around.”

Ben frowns both at her silly wink as he does at the machine, but still obeys, albeit somewhat poorly. Eventually, after some seriously beginner-level waving and resting on one or the other spot too long and half burning her head, he starts ruffling her hair around in a slightly less helpless manner, getting the hang of it.

 

She’s enjoying his attentions so much, she has half a mind to throw his phone away and forget that Hux even exists but then she still has a job to do and reads the ginger’s texts, trying to imagine someone else typing them so it doesn’t kill the warm fuzzy feeling Ben’s hands ruffling through her hair are causing.

“So,” she says loudly, talking over the noise of the hair dryer. “Hux says we have a detail gig, whatever that means.”

“Security detail,” he half yells. “Means you’re officially under my jurisdiction on this one. Does it say when?”

“Later today. At six,” she reads, matching his volume. “For Hux, SL and a guest. Sounds ominous. Who’s SL?”

Ben pauses, shooting hot air into the rest of the room and stares into the void for a second next to her, his face briefly serious. “That would be Snoke.”

“Oh,” and just like that, Rey freezes. “So I guess I’m meeting him after all.”

“I guess so.” He sounds less than happy about that but instead of giving voice to any other concern, he goes back to her hair, even more invested than before. “Love the short notice, that’s nice.”

 

“When did it get so bad between you and Hux?” Rey’s picking up on his aggression, and equal parts curious about it and looking for something to distract her from the prospect of coming face to face with Snoke tonight. Tentatively, she reaches back to rub circles into his thigh where he sits cross-legged half behind, half next to her.

He calms palpably at her touch and thumbs off the hair dryer before he speaks again. “Some time between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren, came to a head in Florida, but it started before that. Believe it or not, this is us on decent terms. If he were really pissed, I’d get a detailed itinerary a week in advance with a damn notary stamp it’s so official.”

 

He gets this crease between his eyebrows that speaks of years of frustration and it moves her to kiss him, soft and lingering.

“What was that for?” he mutters when it’s over, that wrinkle on his forehead all but gone.

“I just,” she begins. “I appreciate what you’re doing here. I’m glad to have you. That you put up with all that crap.”

“Well, I’ve got a good reason for it now,” he says and shrugs, making her smile.

“So, what do we do as security?” She goes back to business, not because she particularly wants to though. “Just shadow?”

“Mainly, yeah. We’ll probably be split, me with Snoke, you with Hux and this guest. Essentially, we act as bodyguards, but more…” he looks like he’s trying to find the right way to phrase it. “More trigger-happy. If we run into any trouble, you and I will be expected to get rid of it.”

 

“Nice.” She makes a face. “So that might be another crappy evening of murder and gloom.”

“Most likely not,” he murmurs, rubbing her shoulders reassuringly and she leans into him like it’s complete salvation. “It’s a formality more than anything. Any time Snoke goes somewhere on First Order business, it’s best to have an entourage for presence. Actual incidents are rare.”

“Good,” she says. “Can you hold me for a while? Before we have to get ready?”

In a wordless reply, he wraps one hand over her shoulder across her chest and the other around her waist, encapsulating her like a human shield.

“But hey, at least you get a weapon this time, and not just the knife,” he says, rocking her gently.

“Awesome,” she huffs with zero enthusiasm and gives him a shove so they fall backward onto the bed and she gets rid of her towel, replacing it with the blanket so they’re skin to skin underneath, warm and safe. “No talk of guns in bed, okay? Just us.”

 

The respite doesn’t last. Ben keeps her on her toes, getting ready, antsy and tense the whole time until they arrive at their allocated spot at nightfall. It’s a corner café that looks skeevy at best and they don’t stand out between the other guests, dressed in muted blacks and greys like this is a place where people come to blend into the backdrop. Hux’s fiery red hair is a blib of color as he emerges from the shadows and Rey holds her breath, waiting to finally have a face to put with the phantom that is Snoke. But none follows.

 

“Where’s Snoke?” Kylo asks Hux as he joins them at the bar.

“Had to cancel,” the ginger replies curtly. “Something urgent came up.”

Rey lets out a tiny breath of relief she immediately chastises herself for. It would’ve been good to come face to face with Snoke, to get a grip on the man, a read of what he’s about. But then again, maybe it’s a blessing that he’s not there. When even Ben’s shoulders release a fraction of their tension, it must mean that he wasn’t looking forward to them meeting either.

 

“You two stay at the bar,” Hux tells them. “When a scruffy, tall guy gets here, point him to my table. He’ll be wearing a burgundy scarf.”

“ _Burgundy_ ,” Ben scoffs once Hux has left them. “Pretentious prick.”

Rey chuckles, beside herself and thinks he might be straining not to smile with her. They each order a beer to have something to do while they wait and she’s half finished hers when a broad-shouldered, imposing Latino enters the bar, wearing a dark red scarf and looking like he tells great dirty jokes. He scans the room and Ben steps into his view, whispering something Rey can’t hear and leading the man to Hux’s table.

 

“So, who is he?” Rey asks when Ben is back, sneaking a glance at Hux laying some thick charme on the other man by the looks of it.

“He didn’t say,” Ben replies, looking at his beer. “But I feel like I know him from somewhere. He seems familiar.” Ben lets his gaze linger on the man for a second longer, visibly trying to puzzle out where to put the newcomer, before shaking his head and letting it go. The job this time appears to actually be as low-involvement as Ben said, the pair of them able to make small talk while they sit at the bar. The only evidence that they’re working is how Ben keeps casually checking the exits and faces of the people inside. Rey follows suit, but Ben is the one who tenses, noticing something’s amiss before she does.

 

“What’s wrong?” Rey asks quietly, getting a hand held up to request silence for a moment. Ben uses the motion of taking a sip of his beer to disguise a more thorough scan of the room before turning fully to her.

“Brown jacket at your five o’clock,” he says, expression casual but voice serious. “I don’t think he’s here for the drinks.” Rey takes a few seconds before looking, reaching for the phone she doesn’t need and holding it out like she’s looking for a signal so she has the excuse to turn. It’s a quick glimpse, but Ben’s right. The man in the brown jacket is doing a mediocre job of covering up how he’s keeping an eye on Hux and his guest like it’s his job. She nods her agreement and Ben sits back a little.

 

“I’m gonna let Hux know we’ve got somebody watching,” he says, standing. “You keep an eye on him, I should be right back.”

He grabs her hand, pulling her around as he walks off, and Rey goes along with it, putting her back to the bar so she can keep the guy in her peripheral. As far as anyone looking at her could tell, Rey is watching Ben’s ass walk away, and she kinda does. Why let the opportunity pass her by? She does see the man move out of the corner of her eye, typing something into his phone as Ben leans down to speak with Hux. Rey can’t hear any of what they’re saying, but it’s a short conversation anyway and she can guess most of it. Hux shakes his head, checks his watch, and motions at her before getting a nod from Ben. It’s a clear dismissal, but Hux seems to put more urgency into talking with his guest as Ben walks back to her. Something isn’t right, judging by his face.

 

“They’re wrapping it up,” Ben says in response to her questioning look. “We’re not to do anything unless he makes a move.”

“What else?” Rey presses when the furrow between his brows doesn’t go away. He’d been good enough at hiding his suspicion earlier, only the most subtle straightening of his spine, so Rey has a feeling it’s something beyond their suspect.

“They were talking about-” Ben breaks off, shaking his head like he’s confused. “The center for missing kids, but that’s- That’s an American facility, it’s not international.”

 

Her mouth is open to follow that line of thought, but they don’t get a chance to discuss anything further. A man and a woman walk in the door, drawing Rey’s attention for a fraction of a second, and then she does a double-take. Unlike their man inside, these two haven’t bothered to disguise the fact that they’re agents. The bar goes quiet in a wave, a breath of silence until it’s broken by someone scrambling out of their seat. It’s no one familiar, but it’s all the excuse the female agent needs to announce to the room at large, “FBI, everybody freeze!” It takes half a heartbeat until a burly looking guy jumps up from his table at the window and draws his gun. “Piss off,” he says and the man next to him joins him, a revolver in his hand.

 

It’s instant chaos in the room then, Ben jumps to his feet as people either draw or duck left and right and he shoves Rey behind his back hard enough that she crashes into the bar. Someone shouts and she sees Hux weasel his way from behind his table, his guest following suit and she ushers some other patrons to their knees so they won’t get hit if one of the agents decides to take a shot at the ginger bastard. The agents only have eyes on him but the myriad of firearms pointing at their heads are rightfully distracting and Rey catches some fragments of the familiar textbook taking down strategies. “We are not here for you” and “Just let us pass, put your guns down and no charges will be pressed.”

 

Using every last second of that to their advantage, Ben and Rey slip out the back door right behind Hux and the scruffy man. Ben keeps her shielded from both view and harm and they make it out onto the alley with a bit of a head start but it’s no use, because a new slay of agents is already rounding the corner, obviously ordered to cover all exits.

“You get on the fire escape,” Ben bellows at her, leaving no room for discussion and she watches him stick close to Hux and the man as she climbs up the stairs. He’s looking around feverishly, trying to come up with an escape route and Rey wants to yell at him, to look down - at the near hidden loading door on the ground next to the adjacent building. But then she sees the clear shot on him that one of the agents running onto the scene has, right this second, and this can’t be. The agent clicks the safety off; Rey senses it more than she can hear or see it but she knows it’s happening, she is gonna fire, and if Rey doesn’t act, in a few seconds, Ben will drop to the floor from a headshot.

 

She moves automatically, unthinking, unclasping her weapon, poising it and shoots. It takes less than a heartbeat - but Rey’s always been a good shot - and the agent falls, hit square in the shoulder. And then all hell breaks lose.

 

***

 

_Kylo stalls at the sound of a gun going off, but neither Hux nor the other man is hit when he checks, and Kylo’s heart stops as he whips around to find Rey. She’s crouched on the fire escape, gun up and he connects the dots, following her line of sight to see a limp woman being supported by another agent. Rey snaps out of it even before he can yell at her to do so, and then she’s shouting and pointing at the barely visible loading door while the feds are distracted. He doesn’t think about it, just follows her suggestion and gets their little group out._

_Hux goes first, followed by the other man, and Kylo hesitates, watching Rey’s shoes disappear up the fire escape. She’d be too slow trying to climb down to them, but he wants to go after her anyway, forcing himself after Hux under physical strain. He can trust her, of course, Kylo can trust Rey to take care of herself and make it back to him. She’ll be fine. She- Fuck, she shot an agent, why would she do that? Kylo runs on autopilot, Hux shouting into a phone at the driver to pull around and pick them up, while Kylo is preoccupied wondering if the officers had returned fire, if they even knew Rey was one of them. He’s allowed to keep wondering as they pile into the car, up until Hux swears a blue streak and snaps, “Where is the girl?”_

 

_“Took the fire escape,” Kylo answers shortly, eyes on the street as if his will alone could summon Rey there._

_“Took the opportunity to run, more like,” Hux sneers. Kylo would shoot something back at him, but he’s slightly busy scanning the storefronts and rooftops as the car takes off. “Probably spilling to the pigs as we speak.”_

_Kylo does turn on him at that, the snarl on his face enough to speak to his anger at Hux’s accusation. “She shot one of them, if you didn’t notice,” he bites out. “I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like something a snitch would do to me.”_

_Rey’s reappearance cuts off Hux’s response, stumbling into the street just as the car passes. Kylo nearly leaps at the front seat, shouting for the driver to stop. He does so, to the chorus of angry horns honking, and Rey sprints to them, ripping open the door and shouting at them to go the second her ass hits the seat._

 

_Hux turns his accusations on her the instant they’re in motion again. Rey’s denial is vehement and shaken, her hand blindly finding Kylo’s. He backs her insistence, pointing out that Kylo had been with her from the minute they received orders._

_“And it’s thanks to her they were scrambled enough not to follow us,” Kylo yells, tired of Hux’s paranoia and looping the whole altercation in his mind. Hux narrows his eyes at the both of them for a long moment before muttering his begrudging thanks for getting one of those bastards off his back for good, redirecting his attention to the other man in the car after that. He and Hux get into a heated discussion about secrecy and damage control, giving Kylo a moment to speak to Rey in hushed tones. Her hand is in a death grip on his, knuckles going white._

 

_“You didn’t, did you? Tell them we were there?” Rey shakes her head, biting her lip, and Kylo releases a breath. He hadn’t truly doubted her, but he’d had to ask._

_“I didn’t know...” Rey starts, trailing off. “I shot somebody. Did I…?”_

_Kylo can’t be certain what she hopes to get out of asking, but he hadn’t seen the agent get up. So he nods and watches Rey’s head jerk up, stifling her reaction behind a sharp inhale. They don’t talk anymore about it, not risking that discussion with Hux and his associate so nearby, spending the ride in tense silence. Kylo’s apartment is closer. Hux dismisses them, but Kylo can’t even muster his usual distaste, preoccupied with how Rey races from the car ahead of him._

 

_“She’ll do,” Hux says, like the slight praise is dragged from him, as Kylo steps out of the car. “Just make sure she doesn’t get ‘food poisoning’ again. Weak stomach on that girl,” he comments. Kylo files it away, placing Hux’s estimation of her as capable but squeamish aside until it can be further reviewed. He follows after her and Rey is already pacing the space of the living room by the time he gets inside._

 

***

 

“Fuck,” Rey breathes, trying to keep from hyperventilating by walking frantic circles around the room. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Stop it, stop, just-” Ben is with her with two large steps, grabbing her shoulders to hold her still. “Stop fucking _pacing_.”

“I killed someone,” she screeches because how can he expect her to stop, to do anything at all? “Fucking killed an agent.” Someone she knows at that. She realised this as soon as she had a second to think straight. That the woman she shot down works on her old floor, used to hang out at the coffee kitchen around the same time Rey did. Greta. That’s her name. And she shot her, just like that.

 

“I noticed,” he snaps, throwing her anger right back at her. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

“Are you kidding me?!” Rey stops short, instantly furious. “She had a hit on you, a safe fucking bet, dead-lock on a kill shot. And she was going to take it.”

“Well thanks for saving my ass,” he says, after just the tiniest start. “But that’s not going to happen again, alright?” He looks shit-scared, terrified of what might happen to her, to both of them. About what it means that she’s taken that shot. And honestly, she has no idea what to tell him, apart from the fact that his fucking attitude is not helping at all.

 

“It won’t happen again if you fucking keep your guard up!” Her voice is raised to uncomfortableness and she punches him hard on the arm. “You were so distracted! Do you even know how terrified I was? A second later and the walls would’ve been splattered with your stupid brains!”

“I was doing my goddamn job,” he seethes. “I’m not there to dodge bullets, I’m there to protect everybody else, including you!”

“You’re not protecting anybody if you get yourself killed!” She shouts, rubbing her knuckles because he’s so damn firm that it hurts to hit him and she hates it, hates him, hates absolutely everything. “Fuck - and for what? Fucking Hux? You’d have caught that bullet because you were looking out for that bag of shit. You really wanna die so bad for the son of a bitch?”

 

“I’m sure as hell not dying for fucking _Hux,_ I’m dying for _you!_ ” Ben’s eyes widen in shock when he realizes what he’s said and what that sounds like and backtracks, immediately. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It better not be,” she says tightly, every bone in her body straining against what he just implied. “You’re staying _alive_ for me. You’re staying alive because you love me and because I love you and you’re not gonna get yourself shot for not making a thorough enough perimeter check. You’re staying alive so I won’t have to kill again to save you.”

 

“You shouldn’t have fucking done that in the first place,” he argues, livid. “I’m not worth that, I’m not letting them lock you up because somebody had a lucky shot.”

“How can you say that? How can you say that, Ben, to _me_?!” He’s gotta be fucking kidding her. What is he even getting at? “D’you think I could’ve let you die? Where you here at all the last few days? I can’t fucking lose you. I’d have shot the whole lot of them if it meant you walking outta there, you damn asshole.”

He rears back like she’s struck him, staggering and looks at her like she ripped out his heart with her bare hands. “We’re done.”

“What?” He’s lost her. And she sure as hell ain’t done discussing this. He needs to be more careful and she is angry enough to keep fighting him for it for hours, so he’s definitely not getting out of it that easily.

 

“We’re done, Rey,” he says flatly and calm suddenly, which in turn crashes into her like a punch to the gut. “This. It’s over. You can’t do this, I won’t let you.”

“What?”, she’s repeating herself like a dimwit, her head wobbling on its own because what he’s saying doesn’t make any sense at all, it’s not computing. “What are you- What the fuck?”

“It’s _over_ , okay?” he shouts, arms flailing, voice cracking and he’s stuttering again. “I can’t be with you if it’s, if you-you’re like this. You were right, this was a mistake.”

 

She’s petrified, frozen to her spot as he storms past her to start shoving things in a bag, clothes and underwear and he goes so far as to pry up his box of treasures from inside the dresser. Like he’s actually serious.

“You don’t mean that,” she mutters in utter disbelief, fighting the wave of panic and hurt that’s threatening to overtake her. She’s losing it, her grip, her senses, all of it.

“I do,” he says and looks pointedly at the door. “It was stupid to think we wouldn’t get caught up in this. You keep telling me, you’re a federal agent, I’m a criminal. You can’t _act_ like it though.” He’s so frustrated he’s almost losing his words - but stubbornly not his resolve. “You’re not- I told you, it isn’t _you_ if you don’t have that- that _thing_ that makes you hesitate before pulling a trigger. I’m not dragging you down any further, it’s over.”

 

“No, Ben, that was- that was for _you_ , to save you. I’m not a killer, I-” Rey doesn’t know what happened, what she did, what she can do to stop this, only that she has to. It feels like her whole body is disintegrating, she just wants to reach out to him, if only to keep herself together. “Please, I just...it’s me okay, it’s still me. It’s all okay, I’ll calm down, we’ll both calm down and sleep and in the morning everything will be fine. _Please_.”

Finally, Ben looks at her, blank-faced and eerily collected. “I’m perfectly calm, Rey. Sleeping on it isn’t going to change my mind. I’m leaving.”

“Ben!” This propels her into motion and she runs to him, grabbing his shirt desperately, trying to bargain with him. “I’m still _me_ , I’m still...yours.” She tries touching him where she can, up and down his arms and chest, going lower than his belt buckle in a pathetic attempt to remind him what they are, what they did, what they mean to each other. “Hey, I love you. Do you hear me?”

 

He’s perfectly still for a moment, letting her stumble on forward, touching him with urgent anxiety until she almost has him cupped in her hand. But then he plucks it away, resolutely, keeping both her hands locked by the wrists in a steel grip. When he speaks, he sounds both heartbroken and resigned. “Yeah, I hear you.” Helpless, she is left to fret quietly as he tosses her hands back at her and continues stuffing his duffle bag until he’s all set to leave.

“No, wait,” she comes after him, grabs him by the arm where he stands and pulls. “Ben, stop, you’re not- just stop, okay? We’re still the same people as before, we can talk about this.”

“No.” He shakes her off. “We have to think rationally, those are your words, Rey. You’re letting your feelings override everything else. This is fucking you up. If you can’t do your job, we can’t keep doing this.”

“I can,” she insists. “I _can_ do my job!”

“No, you can’t!” He’s screaming, at top volume but then reins it in, as if he’s disgusted with himself now, too. “You just fucking spelled it out yourself. If you’re so busy trying to keep me alive, trying to hold onto me, you’re going to get yourself in trouble and I _can’t watch you do it._ ”

“What so now you’re walking out on me, just like that? Again?” She means for it to be a blow, to remind him that he walked out of her plenty of times before and that it’s enough to last her three fucking lifetimes.

“Worked pretty well before,” and he obviously remembers. The bastard.

 

She slaps him hard across the face, not thinking and barks into the echo of it. “Worked like a fucking charm.” His cheek is already pinking when she comes back to her senses, stunned by her own violence and she feels her face contort into a grimace of guilt and shame. “I’m sorry.” She wants to touch him, to sooth over the redness on his face but he flinches away from the touch. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Don’t be,” he says, like it’s the last thing he’ll say on the matter and darts into the bathroom, re-emerging with his toothbrush and his fucking shampoo and conditioner and that’s enough to break her. He does mean it. He’s really fucking leaving her.

“Don’t do this, Ben, please,” she begs him. Scrambling, frantic, she feels like he’s tearing into her with claws and teeth and she grabs hold of him when he moves to pass by her, desperately pathetic. “Don’t go, please. We can figure this out. Please stay.”

 

He winces and for a brief moment, where his eyes fall shut and his features soften, they’re suspended - from reality, from this ridiculous fight, from the bullshit he’s trying to pull. And then he turns and bends, wrapping her in his arms, and kisses her. Like there’s no tomorrow. And it strikes her. To him, there is none. For him, this is supposed to be their last kiss. She wants to scream, to throw him off of her but she can’t because just maybe he’ll really go through with it, maybe he’ll really leave. Maybe this is the last time she gets to do this. So instead of shoving him away, she grabs him tighter, pushing up to her toes to deepen the kiss until it’s just tongues and teeth, sloppy and feral.

 

She loves him to the level of insanity. Or rather, she’ll go insane if she _can’t_ love him. She needs him. He can’t leave, not after all she sacrificed to have him. It’s not possible, it’s not _fair_.

 

***

 

 _Pulling away takes a feat of strength Kylo had doubted for a moment he’d be able to muster, but he does it. He stops kissing Rey and holds her away from him because if he doesn’t, he might not walk away, and he_ has _to do that. She’s proven time and again that she can’t stop, can’t say no, can’t separate what she feels from what she has to do. So it’s on him._

 

_“This isn’t you, Rey,” he says softly, like his unspoken apology will soften the blow. “I did this, and I’m stopping it. Stay here, I can find another place.”_

_She starts telling him ‘no’ and can’t seem to stop, repeating the word like a mantra as she claws at him, fingers digging into his arms. “Don’t,” she gasps, tears gathering and spilling over onto her cheeks. Kylo knows his own weaknesses enough to know he can’t watch her cry, so he turns away, headed for the door, and of course she follows._

 

_“You’re strong,” he says over his shoulder. “You’ll be fine.” She won’t let go of the grip she’s retained on his arm, tripping after him and tugging, her voice choked._

_“Stop,” she pleads, watery and desperate. “Let’s go, let’s just go. Today, together, to Venezuela or somewhere, we’ll have a life, okay? Away from all this. Please, please, don’t go.” Rey is begging, one more ‘please’ leaving her, and it firms his resolve. If she’s this disastrous from him walking away, she’d be a wreck if he died, and she deserves more than a life full of mourning. “You said you loved me.”_

 

_“I do,” he says instantly. It’s an incontrovertible truth, dragged out of him and never to be returned. “That’s why this has to end. While you can still go back.” He doesn’t tell her he’s a lost cause, that there’s never going to be anyone else, anything else for him except to love her. Rey is the one who can still cobble together a life in his wake if he breaks it off now. “You already have a life, Rey. Don’t throw it away for me.”_

_“What good is it without you?” Rey’s question is small and resigned, hardly needing an answer. It’s more an expression of her heart breaking as she comes to terms with the reality that Kylo is halfway out the door already, one foot in the doorway to leave, packed bag at his side._

_“You should figure that out,” he says. “You’re more than just mine.” With that, he leaves, unable to stand the sight of her face in tears, accepting his betrayal. And that must be what it is to her, but he can’t regret it._

 

_Kylo flinches at the sound of what might be her fists or her whole body hitting the closed door behind him, but he doesn’t stop. He takes the stairs down at a near run, duffle bag beating against his leg the whole way. He tosses it in the backseat of his car and just...drives. He’s not going anywhere but away, so it doesn’t matter where he’s going, really. Kylo’s run like this before, and he hits the steering wheel with an open palm, accidentally hitting the horn and earning a blaring honk back. He flips off the other driver, road rage an easy excuse when it’s really his insides tearing apart that puts him on edge._

 

 _He’s being responsible. He’s being the bigger person. He’s exactly as torn up walking away from her as he ever has been, but she was_ right _. She can’t be Rey Kenobi, federal agent, when she’s sleeping with Snoke’s number one hitman, shacking up with him like they’re a real couple, loving him, for god’s sake. It’s the cruelest irony that he’d worked so hard to have her. He’d weathered her swinging opinions and steadily held out until she’d admitted she wanted him, cared for him, and he’s ripping it apart of his own volition. Things are meant to be clearer in hindsight, but all Kylo can recall is blinding need spilled over, rushing headlong into the relief of not having to fight for every touch. He can’t pinpoint where it went wrong, but here he is all the same, taking roads out of the city at definitely illegal speeds, like he’s fleeing the scene of a crime._

 

 _And thus, happy endings belong in fairy tales, broken hearts and lost lives in the real world, and that’s just the way it is. Kylo had known it a year ago and he’d been simply lying to himself thinking this fantasy of_ them _was going to do anything but hurt in the end. He can’t stop the way they feel about each other, but he can stop making it seem like it’s a blessing in disguise. He was wrong. Love isn’t selfish, it’s sacrifice._

 

_Kylo drives north, out of the city and up toward where autumn has started to turn leaves upstate. It’s a long drive, quiet except for the pounding in his head until he can’t take that anymore and finds a radio station playing somewhat tolerable music, almost-outdated pop tunes whose lyrics pass him by in a hum. He’s passed several decent looking motels by the time he stops, and it isn’t anywhere offering a place to sleep. It’s residential, suburbs in a town whose name he doesn’t know._

 

_He might have been raised here, in another life. Ben Solo might have walked to school and the small park down the street and grown up to be a perfectly normal person. He must make for an unsettling sight, parked in his car in the lot of what he suspects is a church. Kylo wouldn’t know, having never set foot inside one, and there’s no cross or anything, but it looms over the near-identical houses protectively in the way he imagines a church might. It isn’t comforting. The idea of a higher power never has been a comfort, or even a common thought, in his life. His own actions are the highest power Kylo has ever known, and he’s carved out survival with his own two hands only in spite of fate or God or luck. It’s his lot to ruin everything he touches, and now, of course, he’s ruined the one thing he’d wanted most to protect - Rey._

 

 _She’s too important to ruin, just like the cost is too high for them to disappear on a whim. Kylo can’t see her a criminal, behind bars or shot by her own people, all for the sake of what feels undeniable between them now._ Feelings fade, _he tells himself, the thought bitter. Feelings change, though he’s never quite managed to shake Rey, one way or another. He’d loved her like a sister when they were young, thought of her fondly and worried for her when they’d been apart. He’d stood beside his father’s grave and thought about family and thought about loss and longing, and thought about Rey. He’d wanted her before, true enough, but he doesn’t love her because she makes his chest tighten and his body respond like he’s tied to her with strings._

 

_When it comes down to it, he loves her because he can’t do anything else. Because it hurts not to be what she deserves, and she makes him want to be better than what he is, impossible feat that might be. It can’t be reciprocal though. Kylo won’t let her bring herself down to meet him halfway. Rey is better than that. The idea that she might be convicted for shooting that agent is terrifying in its own right, but the idea that she might not regret it is even worse. He can’t live with himself knowing he’s robbed her of the humanity that defines her, that shining light that draws him helplessly in._

 

_Rey Kenobi can’t be in love with Kylo Ren, but she can work with him, he can be her protector. Kylo should never have been more than that anyway - a face on a wanted sign, a pair of waiting handcuffs, a smoking gun - more metal than man. Not flesh and bone she wraps her soft body around. He cringes at the thought that he’ll never feel this particular sensation again. But then again he likely won’t live much longer anyway. He’ll endure the rest of his days like he’s endured most of his life. Without her hands on him to hold him together._

 

_Stop making decisions for her. She’d told him something like that when they’d first met up and hatched this stupid idea. Unlikely, he thinks, tapping his fingers on the wheel and burrowing a bit into the seat as the chill sets in around his car, now the engine’s been off so long. He can’t stop trying to take care of her anymore than he can stop caring about her, and he knows there’s a reason he hadn’t stopped at any of the motels along the way. He’s going to go back. He always was - maybe not tonight, but he’ll go back to his apartment and live with the reality of the choice he’s made. Kylo can tell himself he’s leaving, but it was ever only temporary, to drive his point home. They can’t keep doing this, playing pretend like everything’s fine in the fast-growing fire surrounding them. Rey hadn’t been able to keep her word in his proximity when she’d called him off-limits, but Kylo is determined to be stronger._

 

_He starts the car up again, waiting for the engine to warm up. He has no idea how long he’s been sitting here, stalling and tormenting himself as the sky darkened, but Kylo can’t backtrack to find a bed for the night until he knows Rey is safe, so he texts Phasma. All his luck for the day must have gone into ensuring Phasma was around to receive it, because he gets a response quickly. All he asks is that Phasma check in on her, make sure she’s alright, and let him know. The reply is so flat he can almost hear Phasma’s disapproving voice in his head, knowing he’s messed things up, but she agrees. It doesn’t take long to find an acceptable place, and Kylo has only just dropped his bag onto the tiny mattress when his phone signals a text._

 

Rey is not here.

 

 _He starts to type a response,_ what the hell do you mean she’s not there? _but it’s not like the message was unclear. Rey isn’t at his apartment. She ought to be asleep, probably tired from crying, but obviously she’s not. His phone chimes again before he can work out why she might have gone._

 

You need to get here. Now.

 

_Phasma is always direct, he shouldn’t let it get to him, but he does, reading into her short text. There must be something wrong. Something besides the obvious. He doesn’t bother responding to Phasma, just shoulders his bag again and leaves. He’s on the road in minutes, prepared to pull over if his phone goes off again, but it doesn’t, and the silence stretches with the miles. By the time he’s left the suburbs, he’s already got a death grip on the steering wheel, mentally begging his phone to receive a message saying Rey showed up, she was only out doing something stupid like buying ice cream or liquor, but it doesn’t come. The phone stays still and silent._

 

***

 

Rey already feels out of it. Stumbling from nothing but the pain ripping through her chest. She’s half drunk from the last bits of liquor she guzzled from Ben’s cabinets but instead of a stupor, she only got more wound up. And then the walls had started closing in on her and she ran. All the way to midtown, all the way to that wretched apartment building, to that damned elevator that is carrying her up right now.

 

It’s stupid what she’s doing, reckless and dumb but she doesn’t care. Fuck him, fuck all of them. Fuck herself. She doesn’t want to think anymore, or feel. _Anything_.

 

The doors ping open and release her to the penthouse floor. Her steps are thumping and steady as she walks to bang against the door. There’s a familiar voice on the intercom, bemused and surprised.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he says. “Have you finally taken my offer to heart? You done with him?”

“I’m not fucking working for you. I need a fix,” she says, laying it on thick with the twitches for the camera in the wall. “Can you hook me up or not?”

 

***

 

_New York traffic is potentially the most horrendous thing Kylo has ever come across, and it goes triple with his heart in his throat, trying to get back to his apartment post-haste. His mind has been going the whole time, wondering where Rey would have gone off to, if she’d given up on him and returned to the agency - in which case he’s making a fool of himself. Or if she’d decided to follow her own hare-brained scheme and disappear - in which case, he has almost no chance of finding her anyway. The final thought is like a kick to the chest, and he nearly rear-ends another car in his distraction. She might be with Finn._

 

_It wouldn’t be unreasonable. Kylo had been clear that things were over between them, so Rey is technically free to do what she wishes with whoever she wishes, and he can’t say a damn thing about it. He recalls the shadow play of them together, what feels like eons ago, and wonders if Rey would take comfort in the arms of her former lover. It’s so likely, such a perfect response to his low blows, that Kylo diverts and starts driving toward her old apartment instead._

 

_He sweet talks his way inside, covering the way his breath comes short in his chest and telling the doorman he’s forgotten his keys, new apartment and all, but his roommate should be home. At this hour, and in this neighborhood, the man doesn’t bother arguing the point, just lets him up. There’s no answer when he pounds on the door, though, and Kylo considers the chances he’s forgotten the exact apartment number after a year over the chance no one is willing to come to the door in their current state, and kicks it open. Cheap screws pull out of the wood at the doorknob and it swings open violently._

 

_It takes all of six seconds to determine the apartment is empty. Finn, wherever he is, must still live here, judging by the painfully innocent pictures around the place, framed photos of him and Rey and other people smiling for the camera. Kylo ignores them, ignores the mess of jealousy and regret and focuses on the task at hand. She’s not here, neither is there evidence of her having been here for a while. Kylo almost feels like he would be able to sense it in the air if she had been, but the place is entirely foreign, clogged with Finn’s life spread over it, useless to Kylo._

 

 _He stands in the middle of the living room for a moment, at a loss. He’d been so sure she’d get her revenge like this, but that’s not like her at all, is it? She’d been far more desperate than angry, and Kylo should have known she probably wouldn’t want anyone else touching her any more than he does. It’s a petty move, and Rey wouldn’t make it. But that leaves him exactly where he was - without any idea where to find her and knowing it’s entirely his fault she’s disappeared. As upset as she is, Rey is bound to do something stupid with that thick stubborn head of hers and get into some kind of trouble. If she’d just_ stayed _it would be fine, but she confounds him at every turn._

 

_Kylo makes it to his own apartment in record time, not finding Phasma there but not genuinely expecting to. It was enough to ask her to go check on his...Rey, let alone hang around for so long to help him track her down. He does immediately see why she told him to come back. The apartment is a mess, now-empty bottles on the table and counter, the remains of a dropped glass on the floor by his bed, and Kylo is positive his shirt hadn’t been hanging off the arm of the couch when he’d left. From the looks of it, Rey had gotten herself properly wasted before disappearing. That rules out her leaving the country, and makes it unlikely she’d go back to the bureau in such a state._

 

_He sweeps up the broken glass with slightly shaking hands and then turns, looking around to see if there are any other clues as to her whereabouts. Her things are still here, even her wallet. Kylo considers the possibility she’d been taken in for being drunk and disorderly, and then goes with the more likely suspicion that she’d run out of alcohol and gone searching for more. He suspects she would have called a driver rather than try and stumble her way to a store on foot or via the subway, and his suspicion is confirmed._

_“She asked me to take her to Mr. Hux’s building,” the driver says when Kylo tracks down who it was that was on duty at the time. He hangs up on the guy, adrenaline skyrocketing. She can’t be_ that _stupid. But it would be infinitely unwise for a lowly driver to lie to him, so there’s no other answer that makes sense. Kylo must have driven her to more desperation than he thought, and he can’t breathe for a second. Every muscle screams for him to get in the car and on his way as fast as possible, but his chest feels like it’s caved in on itself._

 

 _He drops to his knees there in the middle of the apartment and doesn’t bother lying to himself about the tears he can feel pricking at his eyes. This is his fault. It always is, and he can’t seem to even do penance right, pushing Rey out of the frying pan and into the fire in the worst way. He’d meant to protect her, hurt her to save her, and she’d gone crawling to Hux, where anything could have happened to her. Anything could_ be _happening to her, and that thought propels him up and out the door, hitting the exposed brick wall with a closed fist on the way out hard enough to bleed. If Rey is anything but whole by the time Kylo finds her, they’ll never find all the pieces of Hux’s body._

 

_The penthouse is uncharacteristically empty when Kylo walks in, but it’s ungodly late, so he shouldn’t be surprised. Hux’s women are likely passed out elsewhere by now. He hears Hux before he sees him, a low murmur that plays at being comforting, and Kylo circles the couch to find Rey curled up there, Hux bent to hover over her, too distracted to notice Kylo’s arrival. Rey looks like a ghost, pale and panicked, shaking as she stares at things only she can see. Kylo’s vision flares red, zeroing in on Hux, within touching distance of her, and the force of his approach lifts Hux off his feet before the redhead is thrown to the ground, instantly alert. With good reason._

 

_“What the fuck did you do?” Kylo seethes, torn between beating an answer out of Hux and going to check on Rey. Predictably, he chooses her, on his knees at her side before Hux can get the breath to respond._

_“Nothing,” he says, Kylo barely listening. “She came here looking for a good time. Said you cut her off. So I let her help herself to a bit of my personal stash.”_

_“Rey?” Hands on her face, Kylo tries to get Rey’s attention. “Come on, sweetheart, you okay?” She doesn’t respond for a heartbeat, but then her eyes roll to him for long enough to recognize him and breathe out “Ben” before her eyes glaze over again, mouth shaking open in terror. “Demons. They’re in the wall.”_

 

_Kylo whips around to look at Hux, snapping “What the fuck did you give her?”_

_“Just some of the old lucy in the sky,” he says, nonchalant, sitting up and distractedly pushing a palm against his chest where Kylo’s elbow had landed hard. “She was fine until about half an hour ago, started babbling then, about monsters. She’ll be fine.”_

_“How much?” he demands, aware but not caring that he’s not really giving Hux enough time to answer before he’s shoved the man back down, both hands in Hux’s shirt to keep him there, where he might stop being a fucking maggot and be_ useful _. “Speak up, motherfucker. How much did you give her?”_

 

_“Enough,” Hux bites out. His eyes flicker, and the hidden fear is like fuel on the fire, almost begging Kylo to hurt him. “She’s a junkie, after all. I gave her enough to get her where she wanted to go. To tap out good.”_

_Kylo lifts him up just to slam his head back down, giving in to the violent urge and relishing the way Hux cringes. Kylo’s vicious bloodlust coils around desperate fear and curdles in his gut. This is bad. Rey isn’t anything like a heavy user, her body nowhere near able to handle what someone with experience would take. Looking at Rey who seems to be on a pretty bad trip, it’s as far from manageable as you can get. “I don’t give a flying_ fuck _what she wanted, she’s mine, you had no right!”_

 _“Tell that to her,_ Ben _,” Hux shoots back, using the name Kylo hasn't heard him say for years and that would be infuriating all by itself; Hux's knowledge of the intimacy between them, enough for Rey to call Kylo by his real given name feeling like too much to rest easy with. Hux's smug air has dissipated, making way for the pure energy of two men in a fight. “Your little whore came to_ me _.”_

_Kylo pulls back, watches Hux’s eyes go wide and then narrow, and punches him. His fist lands under Hux’s cheekbone, where Kylo knows from experience the blow makes it feel like your eye socket is about to break into splinters. He’s almost disappointed when Hux loses consciousness, and Kylo gets petty, spits in his face because he can. Because he’s been robbed of proper revenge. He deliberates just throwing the bastard from his balcony but he doesn’t have time to deal with disposing of a body right now, so he leaves Hux there on the floor and hopes he wakes up in terrible pain._

 

_He gets up and moves back to her, shaking with both rage and anxiety, and strokes a hand down her shoulder to pull her attention to him. “Rey,” he says, voice soft. “Look at me, we’re going home.”_

_“No, the walls,” Rey insists, eyes on him but not seeing quite right. “They’ll get me, they’re pulling, I’m sca- scared.”_

_“It’s okay. I promise.” He leans in close so her frantic gaze can’t skip over him, and Rey’s eyes are wild but at least a bit more focused. “I’ll protect you, I just need you to hold onto me, okay?”_

_Rey unfolds quickly, arms going around his neck and burying her face in the crook of his neck as he lifts her. “Be careful,” she mumbles, holding on for dear life. “They’ll hurt you, too.”_

_Kylo carries her wrapped around him, ignoring the few people they come across on the way out. Rey is frighteningly light in his arms, and it’s the most terrified he’s ever been in his life, not knowing how much is in her system, how long it will take for her to come down, but he doesn’t let any of it into his voice as he reassures her._

_“They can’t get me, I’ve got you.”_

 

_He calls a cab because Kylo isn’t sure he trusts himself driving them back, and he doesn’t particularly want to wait for a First Order driver to show up, so the first cab he sees on the street will do. He rattles off the address of the building around the corner from him and then turns his attention back to Rey, seated in his lap and still curled into him like she might fall apart if she lets go. She has a moment of lucidity when they get close to home, taking in a deep breath that shudders before whispering, “I think I’m losing my mind.” Kylo hushes her gently, the come down from his adrenaline rush leaving him shaking almost as hard as her and clinging onto the task of taking care of her to keep the fear still tumbling through his mind at bay._

 

_Kylo gets them inside, not having to unlock the door since he’d forgotten to lock it behind him in his haste. Rey is walking, sort of, but he supports her all the way inside, yet to break contact. She stands in the entryway, dazed and watching things that don’t exist, clutching at his shirt. “How are you?” he asks carefully. “Tell me what you see.”_

_“Shadows,” Rey says, eyes skipping over the walls and his face, never quite settling. “Moving. You. You’re leaving.” She focuses up at that, damn his luck, and Kylo can see her chest starting to heave, getting worked up. “You keep walking through the door, there’s just shadows on the other side. You’re leaving.”_

 

_“No, no. I’m right here.” His hands come up to frame her face, grounding her and stroking his thumbs over the curve of her cheeks. “You see me? You feel me? I’m not leaving, I’m right here.”_

_“I’m cold. I’m scared, Ben.” He latches onto the fact that she recognizes him, knows he’s there despite what the drugs are telling her. “Something’s not right.”_

_She’s honestly handling a bad trip fairly well, listening to him so far and being clear about what she feels and sees. It makes his job a lot easier and his chest swells with pride and affection and black, sticky shame. She is so strong, so good for him in all ways, and he pushed her to this. Kylo knows what kind of mentality drives a person to reach for the oblivion of a high. Getting her there is much worse than being the reason she’d shot a colleague. His morals are decayed and so he couldn’t help but see that rot spreading, but perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it’s enough that she would give up her clean slate to save his life. He’d give up so much to save her, after all._

 

_“I know,” he says instead of giving away his thoughts. “Come here. We’re gonna get you warm, okay?” He leads her to the bathroom, Rey weak on her feet but trying, and she pauses in the doorway as if something has occurred to her._

_“Stay with me. Don’t go.”_

_Kylo pulls her slowly forward, hand in hers as she inches into the bathroom. “Of course, baby, I won’t go anywhere.” Once she’s far enough in, Kylo blesses his long limbs that he can reach the tap without letting go of her or being turned away for more than an instant, returning to press his lips to her forehead when he’s facing her again. “Close your eyes,” he commands softly. “Breathe.”_

 

_With his arms wrapped around her, Kylo can feel a bout of shakes judder up her spine and he’s ready when her knees go out, sinking them both into a crouch on the tile floor. She flails blindly for his hand, then digs her nails in when she has it, little half-moons that bite without hurting badly._

_“You’re doing good,” he murmurs. “You’re doing so good. Just keep breathing for me, feel your breath, just that.” He means to get her away from as much sensory input as possible. Kylo has never gone down this particular high, but it makes sense to shut down as many sources of distraction as possible, and she’d said she was cold. The bath water ought to keep her warm and floating, peaceful as he can get her._

 

_“You left me,” Rey says, like she’s hoping it’s a bad dream but knows it’s all too real, her fingers clawing into him. “You walked away. You said it’s over. You never came back.” It’s a distressing mix of lucidity and imaginings, her memory mostly accurate but her speech jerky and too intense, the nightmare of him not coming back too real as if it’s the worst thing she can think._

 

_“I’m sorry,” he breathes, sincere but most likely useless in her state. “I’m so sorry, but I’m here. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done that.” Kylo knows it’s true as soon as he’s said it. He should have given her a chance to calm down, not taken everything she said at face value, and it’s not like he can talk to her about his worries and fears for her right now, but he can apologize and hope she’ll be willing to work it through in the morning. As insane as it sounds, they’re better off together, proof of it is struggling not to break down into wailing tears in his arms. Kylo had pushed too hard and he should have known from Rey’s attempts before, but he’d been stubborn and arrogant and, above all, wrong. He’s so very tired of being wrong._

 

_“Don’t leave again,” she pleads, and he can tell her with conviction that he won’t._

_“I promise,” he says, meaning it. It would be best if they’d never met, but this is the life they’ve been given to live, and they’re so much worse when they try to work against it. As bad as things might get when this damned operation comes to a head, having each other isn’t nothing. It’s everything - everything he can possibly give her. She doesn’t want his sacrifice or even his attempts at nobility, Rey just wants him, foolish and simple. If he ever expects Rey to stop denying it to herself, he has to give up his own easy out. He has to stop running._

 

_“I need you to do something for me, Rey,” he says when her breathing has calmed. “I’ll help, but I need you to listen.” She leans into him, muttering, “Everything” which doesn’t make much sense as a response, but suffices as agreement to work with him. “We’re gonna take a bath, alright?” he goes on. “But I need you to help me get your clothes off. Can you do that for me?”_

_Rey nods, and instead of waiting for his assistance, leans back and fumbles her shirt up over her head. It catches before he can do anything about it, trapping her in the fabric and she shrieks, a high, panicked noise that zips through him. She’s already gathering breath to scream, and Kylo gets his hands to work before she can do it properly._

 

_“Rey, sweetheart, stay still, it’s okay.” He talks over her in a hurry, gently lifting her shirt away as fast as possible without yanking her head or arms around too much. She’s wide-eyed and panting when her head pops free, and he drops the shirt to get a hold of her shoulders and draw her gaze to him. “Shhh, I’ve got you. Okay? Okay? Look at me.”_

_She’s still breathing heavily as she leans in to kiss him. It’s sloppy and desperate, largely missing his mouth, but he lets her do it, lets her slide her lips over his until they fit. He pulls back only marginally, pressing in again and shaping her willing mouth with his so it’s less frantic. He backs up slowly, letting her chase him once so she knows he’s not gone far._

_“You did so good, babe. I’m so proud of you.” To his knowledge, this is the first time Rey has been on anything stronger than alcohol and your garden variety marijuana, and she really is doing marvelously. Her trust in him is heartbreaking and Kylo would deny he deserves it, but he’s working on that._

 

_“I’m scared,” Rey whispers as he draws her up enough to help her with her pants, making his hands still immediately, ready to back off in an instant. “I know they aren’t real, but I can see the shadows. I just wanna sleep, or stop.” She brings her own fist up and beats her forehead twice before he catches her wrist. He gets it, the way your own mind can turn against you and it feels good to lash out however possible. Kylo’s place here is to provide the counterpoint, so he presses a kiss to the underside of her wrist and draws her attention to him._

_“We’re gonna get you clean and then you can sleep,” he promises. Her loose hair is still plastered to her neck and forehead, dried sweat all over her skin, and he wants to wash her clean for both of them - her physical comfort and his mental. “You remember I told you baths help? Trust me, we’ll get you clean, wash off everything, and go to bed.”_

 

_Rey accepts his laid out plan and moves ahead of him again, an endearing attempt to get into the filling tub without taking off her open jeans. “Kid, no, wait,” he says, holding her around the waist and helping her shimmy her pants off. Wet jeans are no one’s friend, clammy and awful afterward no matter how tempting the warm water is. “There we go,” Kylo says, helping her in and turning off the tap. “You okay?”_

_She only nods, arms coming up almost in slow motion through the steaming water to wrap around herself. She rocks gently, reminiscent of a child trying to calm itself. He stays by her side while she breathes carefully, experiencing a surreal moment of memory overlapping what he’s seeing in the now. Then Rey’s face twists, and she says Hux’s name, stilling._

 

_Kylo swallows the instant reaction to demand answers and diverts himself to be reassuring instead. Rey doesn’t need an interrogation from him. “He’s not here,” Kylo says firmly. “It’s just us now.”_

_“No,” Rey insists, shaking her head. “He said- He said horrible things. He whispered. He called the demons.”_

_He didn’t call any real demons, Kylo knows that. It’s the acid talking, but the flash of blinding fury comes anyway, making his hands shake. He puts them in Rey’s hair to distract himself, cupping water in his hands and wetting her soft curls as he speaks. “They’re gone, we got away. They can’t get you here.”_

 

 _“He said you would bring me to him,” Rey says, quiet and shaky, “that you would_ share _me.”_

_Kylo freezes at that. “That’s never gonna happen.” He’s positive he didn’t tell her that, Hux must have said something, and the bruises and headache that asshole will wake up with are nowhere near enough. Kylo stomps on his aggression, bile rising in his throat as he forces himself to calm down and not work Rey up with him. “I got you, he’ll never put his hands on you again.” If Hux so much as tries to touch her, Kylo will take his hands from him altogether._

_“I want to get out,” Rey demands, suddenly, interrupting his dark thoughts and pulling at his arm. “Need you.”_

_“Okay, wait. Easy.” He doesn’t want to put into words why it seems easier to work with her here, but Kylo has made it through his roughest points on this tile floor, in that bathtub, and it gives him a strange sense of power over the situation. He climbs in, more willing to go to her than he is to move her again. She keeps pulling at him, so he stops trying to get out of his clothes after his jacket and shoes are gone, climbing in and instantly ruining his shirt and dress pants. The white fabric goes translucent, a ghost of a barrier between them as Kylo pulls her close, settling with her back against his chest and his arms around her. “Is this better?”_

 

_“Safer,” Rey says, nodding and leaning against him. Kylo puts his forehead against her shoulder, curling his body around hers as completely as he can. “Yeah,” he breathes. “You’re safe. I’m here. I’m here now.”_

_He gets lost for a while, recalling all manner of conflicting memories. He remembers holding Rey when they were younger, soothing her after nightmares. She’d been a skinny, fragile child, fitting neatly into his bed when she’d come stumbling in the middle of the night in tears, and Ben had always just opened his blankets and welcomed her. He remembers finding this damned apartment after he’d walked out on her the first time, unable to go far or answer for himself why he couldn’t leave when he knew perfectly well his face was on too many wanted posters to live in such a highly populated area. Kylo remembers the first time he’d found himself here, lights off and curled as small as possible with his ears under the water so he couldn’t hear the world. Trying to hold onto his own heartbeat as an anchor._

 

_He doesn’t know what it’s like for Rey, coming down in fits and starts, but he can feel her muscles loosening as he holds her. He’d give anything to be able to slip into her mind and calm her fears, but this is the best he has, the physical support and the tricks that had always worked for him. Kylo dives into the memories, trying to scrape out whatever is useful and making lists for himself. He can get her clean and warm, keep her calm and as positive as possible, make sure she’d hydrated and remember to bring a trash can over by the bed in case she’s sick in the night. He mindlessly sweeps warm water up over her arms, staring at how small she looks. Rey is still slim, but so much harder to put together than when she was eight, and Kylo hopes he’s up to it. He only notices he’s crying when he can’t breathe through his nose, and he chokes back a sob so she won’t hear it. He doesn’t really understand it, or he does. If anything, he hasn’t properly cried in months, not since he was in Rey’s position, and it’s a strange sensation to be doing it again. Liberating and crippling all at once. Rey starts rocking again, and Kylo wonders which one of them is truly holding the other together. It feels like he’ll fall apart as easily as she might, focused to a sharp point on the need to keep her safe and nothing else. He doesn’t have room for everything else right now._

 

_“Will you run away with me?” Rey asks into the quiet. She sounds drowsy, almost dreaming, and Kylo takes a second to shove the heel of his palm at his eyes, willing himself to speak normally._

_“Anywhere you want, love. We can go anywhere you want.”_

_“And marry me?” she goes on, the same dreamy tone like she’s chasing fantasies to keep her demons at bay. This one is a fantasy that hurts to think about, knowing it won’t come true, but Kylo won’t deny her the comfort of it._

_“And marry you,” he answers. He would, if things were different, if they were different people and he wasn’t quite so good at hurting her. In another life, maybe Ben would have got it right, never left, or come back before it was too late for both of them._

 

_“We’ll be our own family, like before. We don’t need anyone.” Kylo wonders if this was what the better half of her trip had been like, glowing ideas of home and belonging, hopes at least some part of it was a comfort in some twisted way. “You’ll drive the Camry. I won’t tell that you snuck a beer.”_

_She’s overlapping memory and reality again, trapped somewhere in the past, and Kylo reminds her gently, “The Camry’s gone, Rey. And nobody’s getting in trouble for drinking. We’re all grown up now. Remember you had a beer with me? And we danced?”_

_“You wouldn’t kiss me,” Rey says, killing his hope of reminding her of better, more recent times, so he tells her he’ll kiss her anytime she wants, forever. Rey hums in response, fingers on his knees where his legs spread around her, and asks, “What would we dance to? At our wedding?”_

 

_Kylo has to search for an answer. He’s no great fan of romantic music, only knows a handful of cheesy 80s ballads and god awful modern songs, but he finally finds something that he can bring himself to answer with, not knowing the title. He can remember some of the lyrics though, having heard it somewhere along his drive tonight and punched to a new channel when it had reminded him too much of his own reality._

_“You know that one from the radio-” he starts, breaking off and hoping she does, because he’s only able to hum a few bars before some of the words catch in his mouth. “Mmm-mm none of it was ever worth the risk, but you are the only exception..” His voice is rusty, too low and clumsy, but she asked, so he’ll answer. Rey turns to kiss him when he trails off, leaning around her own shoulder and only catching the corner of his mouth. “You never sing anymore,” she says, going almost cross-eyed trying to look at him and surely tweaking her back._

 

_“Not really, no. I’m not that good at it.” He’d only ever done it absent-mindedly, always stopping if there was a witness or he’d become aware of his own voice._

_“Yes you are.” Rey is predictably stubborn in her defense of him, even in something as trivial as his singing voice, and her gaze shifts away from him, her spine relaxing as her body uncoils. “You’ll sing them lullabies. Our kids. We’ll have...a boy and a girl. You can pick some names.”_

_“Okay,” is all he says at first. Now is not the time to tell her he’d be a terrible father with nothing to base it on, or that he doesn’t want it. The idea of children isn’t even something that is on his radar, let alone a future goal, but it hits him hard with a mess of conflicting emotions that the first thing that comes to mind as she’s trying to bring herself down from a horror trip is imagining a cornflake-commercial life with him. That she seems to want his children,_ his _, of all the people in the world. So he feeds into her pleasant little fantasy anyway, for her sake, asking if she wants a boy or a girl first._

 

_“A boy,” Rey smiles, easy and light. “With your hair. And your ears.” He doesn’t comment, just takes in the way she’s calmed down, legs bent easily in the water, no longer shaking against him or having to focus her breaths._

_“Let me clean you up, okay?” he asks, satisfied that she’s come down enough to go through the motions of washing off the night. “Is it alright if I let go to do that?”_

_Rey nods and he leans around her to get the soap, almost dropping it when she says, “Tell me about our baby.”_

_“Okay.” He doesn’t though, not for a long while, soaping her arms and shoulders and back in silence while he thinks. Kylo has no idea what to say. It’s not his dream and he’s never thought about it. When he does, his thoughts fall to logic, the likelihood of dark hair and dark eyes, genetics and clinical statistics. “He’d have your eyes. My hair, your eyes. I think he’d be tall one day, like me.” Kylo swallows past an unexpected lump in his throat. “Get into trouble like you when you were little, but no one could stay mad for long.”_

 

_“He’s a funny kid.” Rey picks up where his voice stops, but where he’s hypothetical, Rey talks like it’s already a certainty, like she can see this future before her already. “Adventurous, with a temper. You’re very strict. You never let them out of your sight. Like a hawk.”_

_“Same goes for you,” he says, not talking about potential parenting, but rather the way he knows he won’t let Rey out of his sight if he can help it. “I won’t let you go again, Rey. I won’t lose you.” He almost had. He’d almost thrown it away and thought they’d be better off, but things always seem so much more urgent in the moment._

_“Don’t, then,” she says easily. “Stay here with me.”_

_“I will, I want to.” He gets lost in the motions of washing her body for her, sweeping his hands over her legs and rinsing away soap bubbles. It feels good to care for her in a way that’s completely non-sexual, naked as she is, and a strange sort of peace to know he doesn’t always have to be driven mad for her. He can be this, comforting and comforted by her without having to lose himself in her skin. “You stay with me, too, okay?”_

_“Always,” Rey says. “I promise.”_

 

_They don’t talk much more after that, just small questions and answers while Kylo rinses her hair out, fingers weaving through it and leaving Rey humming with her eyes closed. Her limbs are still weak when they step out of the bath, Kylo wrapping her in a towel before shedding his own sopping clothes and putting another towel around his waist. They get ready for bed together, Kylo remembering the trash can just in case, though Rey seems more sleepy than anything else by now. He places a glass of water by the side of the bed as well, Rey watching him move things from where she’s perched in the center of the bed, an extra blanket draped around her shoulders._

 

_She holds her arms open for him when he finally comes to bed, innocently wanting, and Kylo fills that space without hesitation. Her limbs wrapped around him, he twitches the blankets into place and falls asleep long after her, afraid he’ll wake up to some new horror. His imagination conjures up so many options. She could relapse into seeing things again, wake up screaming and lost in her own mind. She could decide he was right in the morning, the cold light of day casting everything in harsher shades of logic. She could tell him he’s too unpredictable, decide the operation’s over, be horrified he’d undressed and touched her while she was drugged, tell him she doesn’t love him anymore._

 

_Or she could still want him in the morning. Rey might follow through on her desire to talk things out and stupidly take him back. Whatever is waiting for him when she wakes, Kylo will be there to face it. It’s time he stopped trying to run their lives for her, and it’s long past time he stopped running away._

 

***

 

Rey wakes up in cold sweat, uncomfortable but sober. Before she has her eyes open properly, she reaches out for Ben but feels just an empty mattress, the blanket they share all to herself. She calls out for him then, still disoriented and instantly assuming that he’s gone again.

“Hold on,” he says and she breathes out low and relieved, prying her eyes open to watch him setting brown paper bags stuffed with what looks like copious amounts of groceries on the countertop. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, a bit low,” she says from where she lies, unable to sit up quite yet and examines her feelings. It’s not so much blue she feels but more like vacant, void. As if the first couple of blissful, numb hours of ecstasy from her roll had burned straight through all her endorphins and the horror trip that followed on its heels took care of everything else. Now she feels almost less than nothing. The only thing that registers, but merely as a shadow, is a sense of ease that comes with seeing Ben and knowing he’s got her. “Okay otherwise, I think.” She says because he is still looking at her like he wants her to go on. “I don’t believe I’m going insane anymore.”

 

“Good,” he says, a weird stern kind of relief in his voice and he walks over to where she lies, slowly, as if not to startle her - and it’s good that he does because even at this slow pace his movements blur and she gets a little dizzy in her attempt to sit up to reach out for him. It’s better when he sits down at the edge of the bed and a new emotion pushes itself gently into the black hole the comedown ripped into her. Mortification. As she remembers with too much clarity what she did, how manic and dumb that was and all the ridiculous things she said to him in that tub. God dammit, _the tub_. He had to wash her like a child and hold her like she was made of glass, shaking like a leaf - right where he had been a year before. Now if that mustn’t have been triggering the everliving shit out some very nasty memories. And she did that to him. Awesome.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she says, pulling her knees up to her chest to wrap her arms around them, for support and so she doesn’t fall back down again. “I was out of control. Stupid…”

“Kind of stupid, yeah,” he says but smiles kindly before he frowns. “I’m not gonna hold anything that happened against you, but you shouldn’t have gone over there, Rey. And you should stay away from that shit, as far as you can.”

“I know,” she says through a square jaw, chin on her kneecaps and looking at the far wall. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I was just...I lost it a bit. After you left.”

“Trust me, I know, just please don’t do anything like that again,” he half whispers and scoots just a little closer. “I’m sorry I made you...feel like that was even an option.”

“No,” she hurries. “You were right. I shouldn’t have done it. It was dumb and reckless and beneath me and I’m so embarrassed.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m the last person to judge. I know how it feels when you’re in so deep you just wanna swim down. I know I got you there in the first place.” He sighs deeply and she looks at him again just in time to see him pluck up the courage to say something that must take some guts and is probably profound. Rey remembers his words in a flash.

 

 _It’s not worth anything if you have to ask to hear it_. And if her display from the night before wasn’t a totally undignified testament to her poor decision making skills, it was definitely the biggest, neediest, most pathetic plea for someone to profess their love the world had ever seen. And it’s shamefully weak and dependent to need it so bad that her cheeks burn with humiliation. This is not the woman she wants to be. At all.

“Rey-” he begins but she stops him.

“I don’t...I don’t need you to say anything,” she’s talking to the blanket. “I can handle it, I swear, I’m really better than this. You don’t, I don’t want you to feel obligated to me. I’m not-”  And she has to close her eyes when a slew of words, said out loud, actually having left her mouth, come back to the forefront of her mind. Words like _marry_ and _me_ and _children_ and _lullabies_. This officially has to rank very high on the list for worst mornings ever now.

 

“God, _fuck_ . I didn’t mean to club you over the head with picket fences. I’m sorry.” She really, _really_ is.

“It’s fine.” He actually shrugs. Like he didn’t have front row seats to ‘Rey - or Pathetic Neediness Unrewarded’ last night. “You use whatever you have to to bring yourself down gently. So long as you’re okay, you can talk about whatever you want. I just...need to know you’re alright.”

“I’ll be fine,” she says and hopes it’s true. She wants to touch him but she doesn’t know if she can ask that of him after what she put him through. She also doesn’t know if she wants to be that person at all, so vulnerable to him and everything he does. She always prided herself in being independent, self-sufficient, not needing anybody. She spent half her life fending and caring for herself, perfectly _by_ herself and she never, ever wanted to feel so desperately tied to anybody - let alone to someone who kept finding reasons to leave her.

 

Not that she can blame him. A huge aspect of why she thought dropping some acid at Hux’s place was the best possible way to spend the night was that he’d essentially been _right_. About her losing focus, on her job, her morals, her goals. And it’s not like any of that has recovered over night either. She would do it all over again, whatever that says about her. She would shoot that agent again a million times if it meant Ben was safe and breathing. And she will still put hell and heaven into motion to get him an out before it all goes down. She still loves him, still needs him and it’s shocking how little she can fight that, how little she’s come to even want to, even with the night that she has behind her. Ben had paid the price for her shame, had to watch her disintegrate on his bathroom floor like the most tragic cautionary tale. It’s unbecoming and degrading at best, what she did to herself, and mortifying what she did to him.

 

“I just feel really bad. For putting you through that,” she says. “I’m sure it wasn’t fun getting in that tub again that way.”

“I’ve been through a lot, I can take it,” he says with a half-cocked grin that makes it look like he’s the most relaxed person on earth. And it would be believable if it wasn’t for the veritable ocean of emotions swimming behind his gaze. “Besides, it means I knew what to do.”

 

On the street, a garbage truck makes its noises and they beep and crack into the silence that falls on the two sleep-deprived humans in their bent and bruised bubble. They’re each tending to their own thoughts for a minute or two and Rey decides that it’s time to try and let him go. Maybe they’ll do better this time. She knows it’s not realistic that she will stop looking for ways to seduce them both time and time again but maybe if he stops being so eager to let her, they’ll have a shot at keeping this professional. The thought should kill her but she is, gracefully, too numb for that kind of pain.

 

“I’ve been thinking,” she starts, quiet but steady. “I don’t want to keep you out of your home. I’ll find a place, maybe just...move into one of the free apartments two floors down. But I can do it, it’s alright. You don’t have to worry about me any more.”

“What?” He whips his head around to her like she’s suddenly grown a second one. “No, Rey, you’re staying right here. And I’m staying here, too.” He gets up, moving from the end of the bed to the head, kneeling on the floor, still tall enough to loom at the edge, one arm on the mattress to prop himself up on, the other reaching for her, landing with soft pressure on her arm. “I said I wasn’t going to leave you and I meant it. I was wrong to try and cut it off like that. We can’t-” There’s a pause while he looks around the room like he can pluck the words he’s looking for out of thin air. “We can’t do this without each other, and _I can’t lose you_. You just have to promise me you’ll be more careful. Around Hux and the feds if we run into them again.”

 

“Does that mean we’re not _done_?” she asks, the echo of him declaring them over and finished still ringing in her ear and she doesn’t quite allow herself to have any kind of response yet, not until he’s said clearly what he wants.

“I...it must...seem like I’m going back and forth, but,” he begins and struggles to his feet, sitting on the bed now, broad-shouldered and huge there, like a man made of shadow in his black shirt and jeans. “I knew it was a mistake as soon as I left. I always do, I’m sorry I keep making that same one over and over again, but I swear I’ll always come back, I just-” Ben breaks off. Seems like he has to focus on moving in on her, shoes on the sheet with no regard for manners and wraps his hands around the back of her neck to bring her close so he can rest his forehead on hers. “I don’t know how to do this _right_.”

 

“We can find a way,” she says, thinking maybe for the first time about what an actual future with him could look like if they’re actually crazy enough to try for one. “We can find a way to get you out before I make the drop on the operation. You hide out somewhere down south where no one lives for miles and miles and I’ll come see you when I can.”

It must sound a little like a joke but she sort of means it. Honestly, this wouldn’t be much in the way of a life together but it would be better than nothing.

“Would that be enough?” he asks her, face searching and serious, once again seeing right through her.

“It would have to be.” Reluctantly, she breaks away from him, to get some room to think. “And I’ll still have you. Even if it’s just for a little while.”

“That’s not what you wanted.” The garbage truck rumbles faintly in the distance but it’s still nearly loud enough to draw out Ben’s voice. “You couldn’t have a normal life. You’d be living a lie, could you do that? Could you, Rey? Have two lives, one always in the shadows, always looking over your shoulder? You’d never have that family you want. Your _boy and a girl_.”

 

“I could, though” she shoots. “I can still...we can...people have kids on their own all the time. We could have a secret family, if we wanted that.” It registers how absurd that is, that she’s actually talking about having kids with him, about ten seconds after he roundabout said that they’re gonna keep sleeping with each other, which is about all the commitment she thinks he can make. But still. This could as well be a factual discussion and it’s just wrong to say that they couldn’t have a family, theoretically. “No one would care.”

“ _I_ would and you would too, eventually. We can’t have it, not if it’s like that.” It’s like this conversation is so uncomfortable for him suddenly, he physically has to put some distance between them and he moves into the kitchen, fumbling with the grocery bags on the counter as he goes on. “I wouldn’t be there, not in any measure that counts. We can’t be the reason another kid grows up with a father who’s nothing but half-assed Christmas cards and forgotten birthdays. You know what it’s like growing up knowing or even just _thinking_ your family doesn’t want you.”

 

Ben shakes his head and then produces two containers of juice from one of the bags and holds them up for her inspection, obviously desperate to change the subject. “You want some? You’re probably dehydrated.”

“Orange juice,” she says and it’s a bit absurd. “I’d want them,” she adds, sheepish. She’d want them so much it’s a struggle to say it out loud. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying we need to have kids anytime soon. I’m just saying it’s possible, even if we’re apart. Just… If I ever have children I want them with you.” In a perfect world, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing; telling the man you love you want to have his babies? Why does it feel like she’s admitting to some horrifyingly humiliating and forbidden fantasy?

 

Maybe it’s the way he pours her juice like it’s the only thing he ever wants to do or think about ever again, carrying it over to her and watching her drink like the whole world depends on it, waiting until she’d finished it and put the glass on the nightstand-chair. She could’ve had three more glasses by the time he speaks again.

“To be honest, I don’t even know if that’s something _I_ want, but it’s not-” he sighs. “It’s not in the cards for us right now anyway. If, by some miracle, we both make it out of this, and I manage not to be in a penitentiary for the rest of my life, we can talk about it then. If anything, you can’t want to be the woman who takes her children to see Daddy in prison every other month, right?”

Rey says nothing, not daring to contradict him out loud, and he gives her a look that says he really, really doesn’t want to get into _that_ whole thing right now. “We’ll see when we get there, okay?”

 

“Yeah, of course.” Her ears are burning. “Geez, Rey...way to put the fear of God in people before breakfast.” There are very few times she’s felt more put out in her entire life. What the fuck is wrong with her anyway? All that her brain is still capable of providing is rambling and it isn’t pretty. “I swear, I never wanted to be that girl springing marriage and kids on someone after, like, a couple of _weeks_. Especially if we’re not even technically together and...It’s, yeah, you’re right, not really in the cards. Any of it. Sorry, let’s forget this whole conversation ever happened.” She tries an easy chuckle but chokes on it, coughing awkwardly instead.

“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” and now the ghost of that laugh is stuck in her throat with her breath because he’s holding onto her hands again and then brushes some stray hairs out of her face, soft enough to bruise. “I want to be with you, properly. You scared the shit out of me yesterday. Just the thought of losing you...I don’t think I could handle that again. Frankly, I don’t think I ever want to find out.”

 

“So...we’re doing this?” Rey’s more breathless than she is proud of with her heart beating through the subdued emotions, so much stronger than the comedown-induced apathy. It’s breaking it open, creating holes in the dense, thick fabric of it.

“I love you, that’s not gonna change,” he murmurs. “We always end up worse off the more we try to fight it, so...yeah, if you want me, I’m yours, for as long as we have.”

Rey leans over, bringing her arms around his shoulders and her lips to his ear. “I always want you. Every second we get.” She nibbles at his earlobe, just because it’s right there and then pulls them down, so he all but falls on her and she keeps him close when he tries to scooch to her side.

“No, stay,” she whispers. “I like your weight on me. It’s reassuring.”

He obeys, although he can’t seem to concede all of his weight to her. He hides the strain of hovering above her almost entirely by muscle and stubbornness alone.

“Ben,” she chides and he finally complies. Truthfully, he does crush her a little, but she likes it all the more. She dips her lips down to his hair, not quite kissing it, just letting them lie there, open and breathing him in.

 

“This is some serious star-crossed lovers shit,” he says into her T-shirt after a while. “It would be ridiculous-”

“- if it weren’t so goddamn tragic,” she finishes for him, knowing he was going to say that and she laughs softly, beside herself. “Do you think we’d have it easier? In some far off galaxy? In a different universe? That there’s some version of us somewhere that isn’t completely fucked up?”

“If there is, I hate the lucky bastards,” he turns his face up to kiss her and she lets him, even though she hasn’t brushed her teeth yet. He doesn’t seem to mind. “But no, knowing us, nothing’s easy.”

“We’re probably space pirates, commanding enemy ships,” Rey muses, ruffling through his hair. “But we figure it out. Make a promise. Sign a treaty. We’re happy in the end, right?”

“Right. Space pirates sounds much simpler anyway,” he smiles, comforting and loving, a combination that is rare and breathtakingly beautiful on his open face. She kisses him again, quickly, but the press of his body on hers is enough to make her note that her emotional damper-hangover has no effect on her libido whatsoever. “Do you think breakfast will keep?” She plucks his hand from her head and sucks his finger into her mouth, just the way she likes it, just the way that makes his pupils dilate until his eyes look almost fully black.

“Haven’t made it yet, you freakish early-bird,” he grimaces, groans and bites his lips hard before he can go on talking. “But the...uh...eggs are in the fridge, so it’s no rush. You appear to have other plans?”

“I can’t really move,” she kisses his brow softly while she speaks. “But if you’d help…”

One of Ben’s free hand travels from her hip up to the sides of her breast and he kisses her neck where he lays on it but with no urgent intent, muttering into her skin before long, with some strain. “Let me make you breakfast first, okay? I want you back at one hundred percent. And then, when you can move again-” and his lips find hers, replacing his finger with his tongue briefly. “I want to make love to you.” She could be wrong, but it feels like his face just got hotter on hers and just maybe his voice caught with something that might’ve been embarrassment as well. Funny as it would be if what talking about having kids with him was to her, is talk of making love to her for him. On her end of things, Rey doesn’t think that’s humiliating at all. Quite the opposite, she’d listen to him say he’ll make love to her on a loop for infinity. The only thing she would like more is him actually doing it. Right now. But then again, breakfast also sounds kinda nice.

  
“Come on, let me take care of you,” he rolls off of her so her lungs expand fully for the first time in minutes. “I know what I’m talking about. You can have your way with me for the rest of the day, I promise.” He kisses her shoulder over her clothes, looking up at her from under raised eyebrows. “I don’t think we’ve had makeup sex so far, let’s make it count.”

Begrudgingly and after another long, smouldering glance that Ben misguidedly thinks will make her hungry for actual food, she accepts, just because he wants it so much. She watches him set the table and fry eggs and baked beans from her place on the bed. Once he’s serving up, she does eat with fervor, like a savage animal, and there is still bacon grease on her chin when she speaks, mouth half full with chewed food in various stages of mesh. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Sometimes I think you just want me for my body,” he quips lightly as he takes her plate away but not before wiping her chin clean with the side of his thumb.

“I want the whole package,” she says and swallows down the rest of her food.

Ben stops short, her plate hovering in mid air above the sink in his grip. “Are the innuendos on purpose, or are you just like this? I need to know.”

“I’ll never tell,” she says and gets up, casually strolling over to him to set the plate down herself and kiss his jawline. “Maybe you’ll have to try and get it out of me one of these days.”

“Hmm, not today.” Now, he leans down to kiss her, slow and drawn-out and she’s right back on track for that makeup sex he talked about earlier. Evidently, so is he. “Get back on the bed, Rey.”

 

By the time she gets there, her shorts and shirt are already lying discarded on the floor. “So? I’m here.” And she lounges there, shamelessly naked, her eyes still smudged with the rest of what the bath didn’t wash off from her eyeliner, her hair caked with night sweat and a godawful mess in general, on top of probably smelling like an English breakfast hall. He doesn’t look like he gives a flying fuck. As his shirt lands on the ground his eyes travel across the dips and creases of her body like she’s the most remarkable thing he’s ever seen and he laughs, low and rumbly, as if he just can’t believe her and strips out of his pants, socks and briefs too for good measure.

 

He’s with her when she blinks next, lowering her down gently and traces the lines of her face with the tip of his nose, nudging her temple with his cheek, commiserating the time when he needed to do this every time, just to make sure they were gonna break their rules again. But now there is no more rule breaking, no more trying to keep apart, no more lying to themselves. This is real, the realest thing she ever had. They’re together now. For as long as they have.  

 

“Tell me what you want,” he says softly and climbs between her legs.

“You,” she says and pulls at him. “Looking at me. Doing what you feel like.” His lips are open for her before she even thinks to kiss him. “I’m not picky, I want everything. Make love to me, like you wanted to.”

“I can do that,” he whispers, gaze gone hot and intense and he never stops looking at her, not once, pushing through his own pleasure with rigorous discipline, getting her to order him around, making her guide his hands on her body, showing him the pace and pressure she wants, heeding her commands of “Faster, slower, deeper, harder” almost before she can voice them. He takes his time with her and accepts her affection freely when she turns to reciprocate, vocal and willing to tell her just what he needs from her. She can’t decide what she enjoys more, him hellbent on pleasuring her until she’s ready to pass out or him letting her do it to him like it’s everything he’ll ever need again for sustenance. She decides to love it both the same amount and have her way with him for the rest of the day. Just like he promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, okay, that was wild. But now look where our babies are, finally officially in love and together. What could possibly go wrong?
> 
> On a more serious note: Thank you to each and everyone who keeps coming back to review, we see all of you and we love all of you - same as the people who talk to us on tumblr (viciousrhythm and jackpotgirl), hearing what you guys think of the fic is literally the best thing and literally the fanfiction equivalent of you giving us money. And who doesn’t love to get paid?
> 
> So thank you, we truly appreciate it - and if you love this story, you have our whole-hearted support and invitation to whore it out to all your friends, to share it on tumblr or with your loved ones, we’d be happy to reach as many potential readers as we can :) Thank you all again, so much and see you all next week!
> 
>  
> 
> (We feel a little bit like a TV show with no set airdate btw)


	9. CHAPTER NINE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conversations are had. Issues are put on the table. People are being grown-ups.
> 
> Thank you for joining us for another week, thank you for your comments, reviews and messages, they make our days!
> 
> SONG: The Cave by Mumford and Sons

**CHAPTER NINE: [I Won't Let You Choke On The Noose Around Your Neck]**

It’s a testament to Ben’s abilities and Rey’s questionable priorities that it’s only in the evening that she starts panicking about that agent she shot again. With the rest of her drug-abuse induced apathy dissipating, it crashes her hard, the fact that she might’ve killed somebody. So she takes the burner phone Ben gave her and calls SSA Dameron at his emergency number. He is predictably worried when he picks up.

“Why was there a drop made on Hux yesterday?” She asks him, a little more abrasive than is probably called for. “You know I’m on it.”

“Shit, Kenobi, I’m sorry,” he says, his crassness speaking to sincerity. “It was a different division and they didn’t check back with me first. I’ve already put my foot down, it’s not gonna happen again. Were you there?”

“Yeah, I was there,” she says, tightly and decides on her toes that she’s not going to delve into her involvement exactly. “I think someone caught a bullet.”

“Greta Harrison,” Poe says but it doesn’t sound grave and that’s enough to get Rey’s heart fluttering. “Clear shot through the shoulder but she dislocated her arm, she’s gonna be out in recovery for a while.”

  
“But she’s gonna live?” Rey asks, straining to keep her voice the right amount of hopeful.

“Yeah, she’ll live,” he says. “She’s greatly enjoying the attention, too. To be honest it’s a little annoying. She shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

 _And she gave no warning before preparing to shoot someone who had all but his back turned to her_ , Rey wants to say but doesn’t, unsure if that might not give too much away.

“Well, if no one’s badly hurt, we can chalk it up as unfortunate interference,” Rey says above a cacophony of relief and thanks for answered prayers.

“Did it mess up things on your end badly?”

“No,” she replies, “Maintained my cover. Making progress here.”

“I can tell from what you gave me,” he says. “Keep it up, I’ll check back in with you on Monday. Brooklyn Pier, I’ll bring Beebee.”

 

And with this he hangs up, releasing Rey into a much better night than before. Ben wraps him in his arms when she tells him, kissing her forehead, and she regains her footing, knowing that she still had her aim right and hit the target how she wanted; to disarm, not to kill. She sleeps easier. She’s not a killer and her brain does the rest, justifying her actions by placing at least a bit of the blame on Harrison herself because she wasn’t supposed to be shooting anybody in the first place and so in a way, Rey did do her duty after all; she protected someone innocent. Even if Ben technically isn’t, he was still not aiming a gun that moment when Greta was poised to shoot, so Rey’s actions were likely even just in some measure. She holds on to this and holds on to Ben, deciding that if she had to, she’d do it all over again. In the morning when she wakes, it all feels like a bad dream, but she woke up from it at last, firmly resolved to go on and take the happiness she’s fought so hard for, the relief of having Ben safe and sound and loving her, for the likely short-lived blessing that it is, grabbing it with a bright smile and open arms at the first rays of sunlight.

 

The first day of being an official couple, if only just official to themselves, they hit all the stops. They get up together, do their morning routine together, have coffee and breakfast, fold laundry together and read the morning paper in turn. It’s nice and mundane and it almost feels a bit like playing pretend but not in a bad way. Before she goes to take a shower, she sneaks up on him where he stands doing the dishes and wraps her arms around his stomach from behind, growling his name in a funny kind of voice.

“Reyyyyy,” he replies, equally as growly and turns his head to bump against her forehead.

“Er lerve yer,” she presses through a tight throat and bites his shoulder blade through his shirt, just a little. He chuckles but keeps humoring her anyway.

“Love you too,” he says, matching her stupid voice to her great delight and earns a kiss on the neck for it. She has to go on her tiptoes to reach him but she doesn't mind at all.

“Silly goose,” he mutters, shaking his head and puts his dishwater-wet hands on her arms. She doesn’t let go of him until he hands her a kitchen towel and suggests that she dry the plates and she does, liking how wonderfully unexciting it all is.

 

Later, after Rey dries her hair for about half an hour, with him fiddling with his phone on the couch the whole time, she sneaks up behind him. With a hair tie around her wrist she has big plans for. She stops at the back of the sofa, running both hands through his hair and starts applying pressure, massaging his head like they do at the salon. She’s good at this, she knows and she hasn’t really done it to him in about a year so she’s excited to get the chance again.

 

It’s easier remembering the first time they crossed that line between old friends to new lovers now that the fact he’s a wanted criminal sort of blended into the backdrop of their reality, with her immersed in his world like that. As he struggles to keep his concentration on his phone and leans back into the touch, she remembers vividly that second night he came over to her place, wincing once about a nasty headache and her offering a head massage.

“You don’t have to,” he’d said. “I’ll be fine.”

But she shook her head and insisted, working her fingers across his hair that was shorter then, barely covering his ears and she remembers thinking suddenly, that when he closed his eyes and winced at the way she touched him, his face looked scandalous, even...sexy and that it was totally weird that she felt this way. She also remembers half-mockingly pressuring him into returning the favor, demanding a back rub and breathing heavily through it with precise and absolute calculation.

 

There was a moment when she thought that what she was apparently trying to get him to do, which was forgetting himself and who they were supposed to be started to work, the moment he accidently pushed his thumb beneath her shirt, retracted his finger with more hesitation than he ought to have. She’d reached behind her back and put his hands back where they’d been.

“It’s fine,” she’d said. “If you want to.”

“Rey, I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” he’d whispered, seeming afraid to breathe.

“If you want to,” she repeated, turning over her shoulder with pink cheeks and her own breath stalling in her throat. He went under her shirt and she’d moaned. That was when he put his head against the base of her neck, underneath her bun.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” he’d muttered into her skin while his hands still wandered beneath her shirt. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“You can stop if you like,” she simply told him, knowing full well at this point that he wouldn’t.

“You’re practically my little sister,” he breathed hard, bothered. In hindsight, Rey isn’t sure who he’d been trying harder to convince, her or himself. “This is a bad idea.”

“I’m not though,” she’d said, insistent. “I’m not your sister. And I’m not a kid.”

“Rey,” his whisper had sounded almost like a warning. “I’m trying to keep it together here.”

Which was what had finally made her turn around, her top rolled up almost to her bra and her skin blotchy with blood pooling in anticipation of something she hadn’t known she wanted, hadn’t ever thought she could want.

“How's that working for you?” She’d asked flat out because she was relatively sure she knew the answer and he swallowed hard, staring at her lips and back at her eyes in lieu of an answer and then she’d taken his hand and put it on her face. He’d taken it from there.

 

His face is the same as it was back then, eyes closed and brows twisted in a mix of relaxation and pleasure but different from then, Rey is casual and breezy because she’s been to the rodeo a number of times now. Not that it’s any less exciting to work him up.

“Whatcha doin’?” She asks him, mind still a little foggy from remembering that first time.

“Texting Phasma,” he groans and it’s not the kind earned by her touches. “I kind of left Hux on the floor with a black eye and somebody ought to do something about that.”

“Oh. Well, he hasn’t shown up here to retaliate yet,” she shrugs and continues lightly, “...Maybe you killed him?”

“I would know if I killed him, Rey,” he mumbles without an edge to his voice and pushes back against her hands, closing his eyes. “I doubt he’ll do anything, we - well, mostly you - saved his sorry ass yesterday. I might have to kiss ass to get back on his good side though.”

“I’m sorry,” she says because it seems to be in order.

“It’s okay, just don’t do it again.” Ben tips all the way back so he can look at her upside down over the back of the couch. “Just talk to me, and I promise I won’t walk out next time.”

 

“Next time?” She raises an eyebrow, half quipping, half serious.

“Life’s not perfect and this is hard,” he says, gesturing between them. “I’m not gonna pretend we won’t ever fight again.”

“Oh, we’re gonna fight,” she says like she’s saying ‘duh’. “As long as we _both_ agree to actually stick it out to the end of them we’ll be fine.”

“Exactly,” he agrees and readjusts his head. “Keep doing that, it’s helping distract me from my Hux-induced headache.”

As she does like he bid, she starts gathering up his hair at the top, where it’s not long enough to fit in one bun but she can absolutely make one of the upper part, a cute little pony tail to get his hair out of his forehead, away from his ears and up and she chuckles quietly to herself at her plan.

“You’re making my hair look stupid, aren’t you?” He doesn’t sound like he minds and puts his phone away finally.

“No.” Of course she is. “That’s fashionable now.” But that is true although he turns to look at her like he doesn’t believe her a shred as she wraps the hair tie around the little section of hair.

 

“I’m not going out like this though,” he warns her and she laughs, dipping down to wrap her arms around his shoulders after she marveled at her creation for a while.

“That’s inside hair. Just for me,” she declares and turns her head to have a go at his ears, sucking his earlobe between her lips and using her tongue for pressure, like she would if this was a different body part she likes in her mouth no less. He’s squirming, saying her name like he’s potentially suffering.

“Wha’?” For every ‘t’, she’s flicking her tongue against the flesh in her mouth. “You don’ like i’?”

“That’s not...technically true,” he almost whimpers.

“Bu’?”

“It’s a little weird,” he grits out. “Not like... _you’re_ weird, but why do you have to go for the funny-looking parts of me?”

“Are you kidding me?” She asks, leaving him be for a second to talk. “Those are the best parts. They’re _you_. I like you.”

“Okay,” he squints. “I lied, you are weird.” But he pulls at her arm none the less. “C’mere.”

“Only if I get full access to those ears. For at least-,” she starts, very set on her demands being met, “-another minute.”

“Square deal,” he says and she makes her way over to him, sitting down on his lap in that way that strains her thighs because he’s always broader than she thinks. When she goes in to attack his ears again, she also strays to lick and bite around his neck and jaw, counting to sixty in her head while he gets right and hard for her under her grinding hips. When she’s at a minute, she stops and leans back, tilting her head. To see if maybe he doesn’t want a little more.

“What’d you stop for?” he asks, face flushed and eyes clouded. “That wasn’t a try for conversation, I’m being really shallow, keep going.”

He kisses her smiling mouth and she lets him until she deems it ready to dip back into his neck for more of the same at his neck. He unclasps her bra through her shirt, desperately trying to move things along because he’s all hot and bothered, jerking upward to meet her rolling hips.

“So what’s for dinner?” she mumbles then, wickedly enjoying herself.

“You,” he says and in one swift movement, lifts her up by the ass, stands with her and carries her to the bed.

 

***

 

_He does make dinner, eventually, enjoying the way Rey watches him, sneaking in and out of his space as he works. For a woman who agonized over getting to this point, she seems settled and borderline giddy to be on solid, official grounds as ‘together’ for whatever measure they can have. Kylo isn’t sure whether to call it a honeymoon phase or something else entirely, but whatever it is, he likes it. He likes that they aren’t waiting to turn a corner and find a timebomb. He likes the ease of taking care of things around the apartment, crossing paths and sometimes diverting. He even likes the way Rey shovels her food as fast as possible every time, like he might take it away from her, as strange as that thought is._

 

_“Do you know how to cook?” he asks, apropos of nothing as he watches Rey take down dinner with the same enthusiasm as usual._

_“Yeah?” Rey’s eyebrows come together, turning her response into a puzzled question. “I think.”_

_“I don’t mean you have to or anything,” Kylo says, swallowing a laugh at Rey’s baffled expression. “I like doing it, but I was just wondering.” He hasn’t really afforded her the opportunity to try, beyond making coffee, but it’s something he doesn’t know. He’d like to fill in as many gaps between them as possible, even if it’s something as mundane as ability and preference for cooking._

 

_“I mean, I can cook some pretty decent meals, but…” She trails off, sheepish, idly playing with the remains of her food with her fork. “You do it so well, I don’t know if you’d like what I cook. It’s nothing fancy.” Kylo is fairly certain Rey could put a plate of charcoal in front of him and, if she were proud of it, he’d choke it down with a smile, but he keeps that to himself._

_“Food doesn’t have to be fancy to be good,” he says instead. There’s a small scuffle over Rey’s plate, but she scrapes up the last bite so he can take it from her, smiling around her food. Kylo rolls his eyes at her and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling back. It’d only encourage her. “I’ll show you.”_

_He dumps the plates in the sink, turning his back on them to wave Rey over. She stands easily, a slightly skeptical look on her face that does nothing to disguise the pleased light in her eyes. “Cooking with Kylo?”_

 

_“I think baking with Ben is more fitting in this case,” he quips, earning himself a barked laugh and then a kiss. It’s sloppy, stretched over Rey’s grin so that her teeth press against his lips a little, but he doesn’t mind. Tasting her smile is it’s own sort of pleasure. She mumbles out a ‘yes’ without really pulling back._

_“And I didn’t even ply you with chocolate yet,” he mutters, dragging her further into him. Standing between his slightly spread legs, Rey lets him kiss her back, making small pleased noises until he shifts and knocks over a fork, bringing his attention to the waiting dishes. “Can you take care of those?” Kylo nods behind him, hands at her waist so he can turn them and get himself back on track before he derails entirely. “I can get started on what we need.” He’s half-disappointed when Rey doesn’t continue to distract him, but her eyes stay on him as she does the chore. He’s set everything out by the time she announces she’s done._

 

_“Alright, this is the simplest recipe I know. Five ingredients.” Kylo feels a bit silly gesturing at the amassed items like some kind of cook show host, but he does it anyway. “Peanut butter, brown sugar, chocolate chips, baking soda. And an egg,” he adds, belatedly, waving a hand negligently toward the fridge. Rey fetches one anyway, setting it into the glass bowl he’s set out and turning to him._

_“Put it all in a bowl and mix?” Kylo suspects she’s playing up her ignorance, but he doesn’t call her on it. The point isn’t really to teach a new skill, anyway. It’s a strange compulsion to share with her what has been his domain since they’ve been living together, along with the desire to stretch out this light, good mood that’s persisted all day._

_“That’s the gist of it.” He reaches over her to place the single egg on the counter and snag the peanut butter, spooning it into the bowl and gesturing at the sugar with his elbow. “We need a cup of that. And you can mix it, takes a strong arm.”_

 

_Rey hip-checks him, maybe punishment for being a cheeky ass, but he’d won their arm wrestling match fair and square. He’s allowed to poke fun. Kylo handles the rest of the ingredients while Rey careful packs a cup full of sugar, dumping it into the bowl before taking it from him to stir. “Like that?” she asks, like he doesn’t know perfectly well that Rey can handle the damn cookie dough by herself._

_“Perfect,” he tells her anyway, dropping a kiss on her forehead. He can’t resist ducking down to kiss her mouth as well, quick and teasing while her hands are full, before setting the oven. “How much chocolate are you feeling?”_

_“All of it,” Rey answers instantly._

_“That’s more chocolate than cookie,” he shoots back, eyebrow cocked because she can’t be serious. “Not sure how well that’ll turn out.”_

_“I’m kidding.” Rey rolls her eyes at him, but well, her sweet-tooth is a thing to be admired. “You choose. You don’t like the sweet stuff so much, pick something in the middle so you can eat ‘em too.”_

 

_He does it by feel, pouring in enough chocolate chips that Rey ought to be satisfied without ruining a perfectly acceptable dessert. “I like these better than regular chocolate chip, the peanut butter cuts the sugar a little better.” It’s also why he’d switched out white sugar for brown. The regular kind always tasted too cloyingly sweet, like it stuck to his teeth too long._

_“I’ll never understand how you have your sugar in the morning just ever so slightly drenched in coffee, but spurn the wonder that is confectionary.”_

_“Keeps me mysterious,” he says with a wink that Rey is clearly less than impressed by. “Now gimme that.” He can count on the recipe to make just enough to fill a large baking sheet, and it’s a small, reliable satisfaction to drop precise rounds onto the sheet, coming up with the same number as always. “And now we wait.”_

_The bowl is, unsurprisingly, not on the counter by the time he’s done setting a timer, but instead in Rey’s hands. She hasn’t even finished the mouthful of cookie dough before going back for more, sweeping the edges with her fingers and swallowing in time to shove her fingers back in her mouth, tongue flicking out to meet them._

 

_“Jesus,” Kylo huffs. He’s torn exactly halfway between his usual response to Rey putting her fingers in her mouth - or his, or anything, really, when she’s playing with her tongue like that - and being disgusted with the both of them. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.” He decides on being amused, wrestling the bowl back from her over Rey’s heavy protests._

_“Nooo,” Rey whines, trying to get past his guard though her arms aren’t nearly long enough. “That’s the best part!” Kylo uses his shoulders shamelessly to block her, nudging her out of the way so he can turn on the sink to fill the half-scraped bowl with water._

_“It’s also the only part that might give you salmonella.” That doesn’t stop her from trying to rescue the bowl, pulling at his shoulder. “Just wait for the cookies, it’s only nine minutes.”_

_“But Ben!” She’s given up trying to pry him away from the sink, instead just tugging at the sides of his shirt and whining like that will sway him. “The dough! The dough, though!” He might even have been tempted to give in, if he couldn’t hear the undercurrent of laughter that means Rey’s amused with herself. And if he hadn’t already flooded whatever cookie dough remained._

 

_“The dough is gone, Rey,” he says, solemn, turning to face her with empty hands, triumphant. “It was weak and foolish like it’s maker, so I killed it.”_

_Rey’s mouth drops open in the most fake shocked gasp he’s ever seen. “You’re a monster!” The dramatics keep up with her banging her fists against his chest playfully. He takes it, shoulders jerking with contained laughter, and then loops an arm around her waist, lifting so he can sit Rey on the counter where he has easy access to the soft skin of her throat. He leans in to bite her there, worrying the skin between his teeth for a moment before pressing an open-mouthed kiss above her collarbone. Kylo rumbles against her neck, growling, and drawing a short breath from her. Monster, huh? “Bet I can make it up to you.”_

_“You need to get those cookies out of the oven,” Rey says after a moment. She’s trying not to let it show that she’s affected, but she’s so easy to read when he can touch her like this. “Or this time we’ll really burn the place down.”_

 

_He groans, nudging his head against the side of hers before leaning back to check the timer. “We’ve got four minutes and an alarm set,” he tells her, coming back and dragging his hands along her thighs, so his thumbs press up and in, stopping before he goes too far. “Nothing’s burning this time, I swear.”_

_Rey tips her head like she’s considering giving him the go ahead, but her hips are far more convinced, shifting restlessly. “But don’t blame me if we blow up. My responsibility for kitchen fires ends the second you put your hands on me.”_

_“Kay,” he agrees easily, delighted. Kylo brings his hands up to either side of her face, kissing her quickly and then putting on what can’t be even remotely convincing as a serious expression. “I’ll let the fire department know it was all me.”_

_Rey lets her arms fall to the side, puffing her chest up like she’s ready for a challenge. “Do your worst, Doughkiller.”_

_“Oh my god,” Kylo snorts. “You’re such a dork.” That fact does absolutely nothing to stop him from making out with her like a teenager for the next four minutes, however. When the timer goes off, they’re both hazy, matching swollen mouths and mussed hair, but everyone’s clothes are still on. He really doesn’t want a repeat of the fire alarm fiasco, so he takes care of the cookies before disaster has a chance to strike._

 

_Rey presses against his side the whole time, making it a challenge to keep from burning her by accident, and they get into a good-natured argument about it. Rey accuses him of withholding dessert and not even having the decency to make it up to her as promised. The cookies are most definitely cooled by the time Kylo satisfies her properly in return for stealing her cookie dough, and his final penance for committing such an atrocity is to fetch the finished product for her minutes after she made him suffer through four times of build-up before letting him finish this time._

_The cookies are sure to be crumbs in his bed later, but Kylo figures it’s a fair trade for the blissed out look on Rey’s face as she lounges naked beside him. There’s an instinctive sense of accomplishment having her like this, loose-limbed and unashamed, doing something as sickeningly domestic as eating fresh cookies in bed. He feels like a commercial for something._

 

_“I could get used to this,” Rey says, giving voice to his thoughts. Kylo hums his agreement, unwilling to move for a while unless she asks it of him. “Do we have any actual assignments this weekend? Or can we just stay in bed?”_

_“Phasma said she can work without you for now. Oh.” Kylo sits up a bit more, remembering Rey probably doesn’t know Phasma’s involvement in tracking Rey down. “I had her come here to check on you, she knows we had a fight, that I went to find you at Hux’s place.”_

_“Oh. Should we, like...send her an all-good-now selfie? I’m sure she would appreciate that.” It’s a testament to Rey’s good mood that she’s only making partially ridiculous suggestions when reminded of the debacle. Kylo considers her, blanket covering her lap and a half-eaten cookie in hand, and can’t bring himself to reject her idea. He personally thinks Phasma will only roll her eyes at such a photo, but she’s been steadily accusatory over text all day. Maybe photographic evidence that Rey isn’t passed out on a floor somewhere will get Phasma to stop implying he’s completely incompetent._

 

_“Probably not the best idea to have too much of us together on evidence, but-” He reaches over to grab his phone anyway, flipping the camera to face them after a couple tries. He’s taken a photo of himself like this a grand total of once before. “Smile.”_

_She doesn’t, turning her head to smush her lips against his cheek instead, staying there until she hears the snap of the picture taken. It’s terribly obvious in the frame that neither of them is wearing clothes, though nothing is showing, per say. Kylo debates retaking the picture, tamping down on the mild jealousy of not wanting anyone else to see Rey like he does. Phasma is no threat to either of them, and if anything, she’s more likely to leave him alone under the assumption Kylo is fucking his way back into Rey’s good graces. She wouldn’t be entirely wrong either._

 

_“I shouldn’t be on-call,” Kylo says, dropping the phone once the text sends. “Hux is probably unwilling to look at me right now, let alone have me working with him. I haven’t heard anything from Snoke since he sent along his apologies for not making the meeting.” There had also been a short message praising Kylo for his find with Rey. Though the officer isn’t dead, putting a fed out of commission was enough to impress Snoke, and ease some of Kylo’s anxieties. Whatever suspicions he’d had about Snoke suspecting Rey’s lack of loyalty seem to have been put to rest._

_“So, weekend in bed?” Rey says, interrupting his train of thought._

_“At least part of it.” But they do need to have the discussion that’s been put on hold for the time being, and Kylo sobers the moment a bit bringing it up. “We need to talk about keeping focus. Both of us. But we can probably do that in bed as well.”_

 

_“I don’t think I can, no,” Rey says, matter-of-fact. “If we need to have a serious talk, we should be dressed and...vertical.”_

_“If that works for you, okay,” he says. It makes little difference to him whether they’re talking with a table between them or simply the sheets. The necessary degree of separation is mental, like stepping into the part of Kylo Ren outside, and whether or not they’re decent for that discussion is nearly irrelevant. “But we can take a day or two. I sort of want to get out of the city for a bit, if you’re up to that?” Rey’s eyes light up at the suggestion, nodding rapidly, and he’s grateful._

_He also has to admit there might be something to Rey’s desire for physical boundaries, breathing more freely when they’ve escaped the smog of New York City. It’s a nearly three hour drive to the tiny house he owns outside of Amherst, and he lets Rey take over the drive once they’ve cleared the suburbs around the city. He won’t tell her, but she’s a better driver than him, navigating the roads calmly and treating his car like she’s driven it all her life. He almost forgets to give her directions she’s so at home behind the wheel._

 

_Autumn has already hit Massachusetts hard, turning their trip into an almost hilariously picturesque drive. The town itself can only be described as quaint, the last place on earth anyone would look for a hitman, where tourists are welcome and families rent cabins for the weekend. The house Kylo owns passes as one such cabin, with wood siding and a stone fireplace, but it’s never rented out. It had been a vacation home until he’d purchased it, not originally intended for romantic getaways but the perfect safe house for hiding in plain sight. It’s dusty when they get inside, but not obviously worse for the neglect it’s seen._

_His bed, at least, is familiar as always and Rey raises a pointed eyebrow at the sight of the exact copy before dumping their small bag of clothes for the weekend beside it. They explore the house together, Kylo re-familiarizing himself while Rey pokes around with fresh eyes. She finds the stack of cash in the freezer, prompting a search for all of his hiding places in the house, and Rey boggles at him when they tally up how much is stashed around the place. He’d meant to save this as a second-to-last resort location, preparing for a situation that would require living off the grid, and with that explanation, it doesn’t come across quite so unreasonable._

 

_There’s also a few non-perishables but not much else, and Kylo has the vague intention of buying food when they go out, but it quickly devolves into a meandering walk. The path through the trees leads toward town eventually, at least a mile between them and civilization, and they take it at a leisurely pace, Rey slipping her hand into his. He keeps them both in the pocket of his jacket, twining his fingers with hers in the warmth. It’s a scene from a movie - all colorful trees and the quiet noises of birds surrounding them as they stroll through the forest like any other pair of lovers._

_“It’s beautiful.” In the peace of it all, Rey’s estimation falls short of encompassing it. She fairly glows in the early afternoon light, shadows playing across her face. Her eyes shift green and gold when she turns to look up at him, smiling with her nose scrunched up on one side against the bars of light making her squint to see him._

_“Certainly a world away from the city, isn’t it?” he says, trapping the feeling swelling in his chest and hoarding it away._

 

_“The air is so much better,” Rey goes on, oblivious to the way his heart is tripping over itself. “I can feel my lungs have a little party.” It jogs a memory that she hasn’t smoked in a few days, diverting his attention to a much more easily handled topic. Kylo doesn’t comment on it though, somewhat hopeful that if he doesn’t mention it, she’ll keep up her streak._

_“Yeah,” he says instead. “I found this place a few months ago and it was just so...quiet, nice, nobody trying to pry into anyone else’s business. That’s why I bought the house.”_

_“I like that, out here. No one around.” Rey squeezes his hand where it rests in his pocket, running her thumb over the back of his. The solitude had been a calculated choice when he’d bought the place, but it lends itself to a far lighter purpose now, and Kylo has to hand it to his past paranoid self._

 

_“I dunno if I could live like this forever,” he admits. “But it’s nice to know it’s here, if I need to get away.” He doesn’t mean it as much more than a passing observation, but as soon as he’s said it, he can practically feel Rey considering the house as an escape strategy. He doesn’t quite have the heart to tell her it’s doubtful that he could disappear so close to New York, but he’s even less inclined to let her know he has no intention of disappearing unless he’s certain Rey won’t be put in danger by his absence. He’d just as well hide her away here, if it were possible._

_“And now you know it’s here, too,” Kylo says when Rey has been thoughtfully silent for a handful of moments. It’s hers to use as much as it’s his, and he doesn’t know how to say that, but Rey must get some of what it means to share this hide-away with her, stopping and turning to face him._

_“I do,” she says, pulling their joined hands between them and taking his free hand as well. “I appreciate it.” Rey goes to her tiptoes to reach him with a gentle kiss, and he knows she gets it. There’s not so much urgency between them as an unhurried pace, a conversation without words._

_“I love you,” he breathes, the words tumbling out without a thought. Rey’s face splits in a smile, an echo of the wide one she’d given him as a child, every time he’d picked her up from ballet, the same smile she’d had for him after he’d come back to her last year, the same one she could never keep her face from stretching into when they see each other. The one she’d given him the first time he put his hands on her. He almost hadn’t, fingers shaky from withdrawal, and Kylo had regretted not sneaking a bit of a pick-me-up until Rey had smiled at him like that, shoving the need away for a few hours spent with her._

 

 _“I love_ you _.” Her reply, fervent and instant, shifts the meaning of that smile, makes him wonder how long she’s felt like this for him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, tugging him down to kiss, and Kylo thinks for the first time that she could mean it - all the long-term things she says she wants. It’s electrifying, considering that Rey might realistically be willing to stay with him for longer than the run of their tragic little bubble. The simultaneous fear and excitement at the prospect spins out between them, thinning to a thought to be examined later as he keeps kissing her._

_Standing there in the dappled sunlight, warmed across his back and falling into her, Kylo loses track of time. He blinks back to the present when a crisp breeze rustles the leaves, opening his eyes to a riot of color surrounding Rey where she stands with her mouth slightly open still, forehead tipped up to touch his. “Shall we keep going?” He rolls his head in a lazy nod to the continuing path. “There’s this shop a ways down that makes great sandwiches.”_

 

_Rey tilts her head, and he already knows she’s unwilling to let go quite yet, stepping back and dragging her hands down from his shoulders across his chest until they’re resting somewhere between his waist and hips. “Just a minute.” And she leans up to steal another kiss, lavish and wanting, opening her mouth to him. Her hands wander and when he hisses in a breath at the touch of her fingers dipping below his waistband, she laughs against his mouth, unrepentant._

_“We can always go back to the house, too,” Kylo suggests._

_“Or we can stand right here for a second,” Rey says, retracting her hand only to press it against the front of his pants, where he can’t resist pushing back into the pressure. “Or are you worried someone will walk by and see?”_

 

_Kylo should be above rising to her challenge, but he just isn’t. He sees the teasing gleam in her eye and it just makes him reach down to cup her ass in both hands, pulling her up so her chest is flush against his. “Didn’t stop me before.”_

_Rey is of course just as unable to back down as him, wrestling his fly open with one hand and shoving past his underwear despite the awkward angle of her arm. It’s the hand he’d been holding all afternoon, warm still, and Kylo has no intention of stopping her when her fingers wrap around him where he’s gone half-hard. Her eyes stay locked on him, relishing the danger and he absolutely has to draw her in for a kiss, spreading his hand over the back of her neck and holding her there. His bruising force wanes as she moves her hand, jerking him off as much as she can with the limited space between them. Rey tips her face away, letting his sloppy kiss land at the corner of her mouth as she stills, just holding him in her hand. “Sandwiches?”_

 

_It takes him a second to figure out what in god’s name she’s talking about and when he does, lunch is firmly kicked down his list of priorities. “I don’t think so,” he says, pulling back so Rey has little choice but to take her hand out of his pants. It’s a few short steps off the path and into the trees, where he can back her up against one. “Yeah?” Rey says, breathing hard when he stops seemingly trying to kiss her into said tree._

_“Will you-” Kylo breaks off, fumbling with his jeans, impatient with the desire to feel her hands on him again. “Is this okay?”_

_“I’d have done it back there,” Rey smirks at him, and he loves her wicked side as much as he loves her soft kindness, he’s so gone. “You want me to?” She’s already helping push his pants down past his hips and doesn’t need an answer, really, but he gasps out a yes anyway, cursing when she pulls and flips their positions so he has something to brace against while she pumps him like she’s as eager to reach his orgasm as he is._

 

_“You’re gonna make a mess, babe,” Rey says when he’s breathing too hard to kiss her properly anymore, a husky whisper curling past her self-satisfied grin. He can’t even blame her for being smug. With as often as they’ve fallen into bed, literally and metaphorically, Rey knows her way around his dick, and she’s pulling out all the stops so Kylo is left doing little more than panting and pushing into her hands. She leans in and bites at the angle of his jaw, twisting her wrist on an upward stroke and pressing her thumb along the underside of his cock, and his shoulders twist and jam backward into the tree. “Come on, Ben.”_

_He groans like he’s dying, but he doesn’t come. He’s gotten good at holding off, and Kylo wants with a sudden ferocity to come with her mouth around him. It’s entirely selfish, but he’s supposed to trust her, dammit, so he makes himself ask for what he wants. “Can I - ah - your mouth, please. Rey._ Please _.”_

 

_She hardly waits for him to articulate the jumbled request before she’s dropping to her knees with a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.” She makes a pleased noise that might even be a laugh when she wraps her lips around him, but Kylo only registers it as vibration, digging his hands into the bark at his back. He might babble praise as Rey takes him down, but she deserves it, skipping over teasing entirely and swallowing around his dick, moaning the whole time. He’d already been on edge and he doesn’t last long like that, practically whining her name when he comes._

_“Fuck.” he slumps back and welcomes Rey when she half climbs up him, letting him kiss her sloppy, nipping at her bottom lip. “You do realize I_ love _doing that?” she mutters, straightening out his clothes for him. “You can always ask, chances are I already thought about it.”_

 

 _“Might be starting to get that.” He doesn’t, really, but in fairness, most of the blowjobs he’s experienced weren’t within the frame of a relationship where both parties even remotely cared about each other like it is with Rey. He strokes his thumb over her lower lip, considers how much he likes eating her out and decides to believe her. “You’re very,_ very _good at it.”_

_“I’m glad you think so,” she tells him with a kiss. “Do you want to go home? Or get that sandwich now?”_

_“Up to you, sweetheart.” He’s vaguely hungry, honestly, but he’s also in a rather pleasant state of wobbliness as a result of Rey, and very much willing to do whatever she wants. “I am hungry, but I’d absolutely love to return the favor.” Rey huffs and rests her head against his shoulder, freeing him up to slide his hands down her back and then push one hand up under her shirt to scrape his nails lightly down along the dip of her spine._

_“This is the choice that will kill me,” she says with all appropriate overdramatics. “Food or sex.” She deliberates for a moment more, but settles on heading back home._

 

_Kylo manages both back at the house, getting her off with his fingers in the entryway before pushing her jeans all the way off her and going to his knees. Rey comes again riding between the door and his face, one leg curled over his shoulder, and then sinks into his lap. Their late lunch passes for dinner as well, and is considerably less spectacular, with the limited resources in the house. Still, the saltines in the cabinet are only a little stale and the evening sets in with enough of a chill that hot soup is as good a meal as any._

_He doesn’t have a television in the house, not wasting the electricity, so they pass the evening sitting on the couch with her legs across his lap, listening to him read from a biography he’d come across on one of the shelves. It even manages to be somewhat engaging, but Kyo suspects Rey is listening to the sound of his voice more than the words themselves. His suspicion is confirmed when she plucks the book out of his hands partway through a sentence, putting herself there instead._

 

_It’s fully night by the time either of them is willing to do something about the chill, and Kylo hunts down enough wood to start a fire. Rey corrects his technique, eventually shoving him out of the way to take over the fireplace herself. It’s all about proper air flow, apparently, and Rey looks so pleased with herself when the fire is roaring steadily that Kylo has to kiss her._

_“I feel like I should be seducing you by firelight or something,” he says after he’s pulled away._

_“You think you could?” She quirks a playfully raised eyebrow at him. “What if I’m not in the mood?” Which, going by her track record of today alone is total bullshit._

_“Well, I’m working with very limited resources,” he says jokingly skeptical. “No bearskin rug, no pre-opened bottle of wine, I suppose I’d have to resort to the simple stuff.”_

_“That’s not enough to tempt me. I’m never going to be seduced by you,” she declares in what she must consider acting and it’s bad and endearing at the same time._

_“You’re full of shit,” he chuckles but goes along with it. “I’ve already got the advantage, I made you smile.”_

_“That means nothing. I got the twitchies.” She’s being silly, and adds in an afterthought; “Pretend, like we mean it.”_

_“Mm, that’s the problem, I do mean it,” he murmurs, reaching over to stroke his fingertips through her hair lightly, leaning in like he’s going for a kiss but talking instead. “I can’t pretend to be charming with you. I could flatter you and talk about whatever thing pops into your head until you’re convinced I’m trying to get at your soul instead of your body, but it’s real with you. I genuinely think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and I do want to hear about that show you hate to love and I want so much more than just your body.”_

 

_Rey kisses him briefly, smiling like it’s hard not to keep doing it. “I know.” And she looks slightly away from him, the way she does when she plans to tell him what she wants him to do to her. “I mean pretend like we’re strangers. And you’re seducing me. For the first time.” So she wants to try roleplaying. Now. He’s not sure if he’s prepared for that. “It was kinda the other way around for us, wasn’t it? Could you do that for me?” She looks back at him, a hopeful glimmer in her eyes and her cheeks just a little pink._

_“For you, my love, anything,” he coos and kisses her with earnest enthusiasm. He’s probably not going to be able to take it seriously, but he can try. He likes the way she leans into his touch, so much that he misses her shuffling and is taken completely aback from the pillow she crashes into his head, throwing him off of her. Slightly puzzled and a little dizzy, he watches her dart up and away from the couch, standing near the fireplace with wide eyes._

_“What are you doing?” she gasps. Her bad acting is more of a turn on than it should be in all honesty._

_“Only what the fires of my passion demand,” he says, already laughing at himself, this is so dumb, still he stands so he can look at her with what is trying to be a beseeching look. “I must have you.”_

 

_Rey snorts. “No, be serious, Ben.” She shakes back into character, trying not to laugh herself the whole time. “I won’t fall for it. You’ll never hear a yes from me.”_

_Kylo moves forward to hold her in classic terrible romance novel pose, arm around her waist, other hand at the back of her neck, the only thing that’s missing is a wind machine. “You say so, but your body tells a different story. Don’t be afraid, I feel it, too.”_

_“I...that’s not true,” she says but it’s breathy and she squirms a bit so he knows it’s real. “You have no effect on me. I’m not giving you anything.”_

_“We’ll see.” He leans in again, hovering in her space, breath on her lips but not touching her. He’s picked up enough of her teasing ways to be able to repay her in kind by now. “I know you’ve been so lonely. At night, desperate to sleep, you imagine someone to hold you, strong arms around your body.” He moves in closer to whisper against her ear. “It could be real.” She’s breathing harder and he kinda digs it. “I could show you the ways of love.” This, evidenced by Rey’s barking laugh, was a step too far._

_“And you call me a dork,” she bellows and then thinks for a second. “Show me what you can get me to do. Prove me wrong.”_

 

_“How about a wager?” He lets his hand travel from her back to her ass, pulling her in a bit. “If I can get a kiss from you, you have to let me touch you.”_

_“You’ll have a hard time,” she mutters and that’s enough to make it clear she doesn’t stand a chance. He studies her features intently, moves his head around hers, lingering here and there waiting for her breath to catch. He whispers when it does. “One little kiss and I can show you.”_

_“Never.” It’s five percent voice and ninety-five percent air._

_“Rey,” he matches her tone. “Look at me.”_

_When she does and follows his gaze down to where he’s working his pants open, moving quickly to get a hold of himself, he’s already won. He starts stroking up and down his cock slowly, feeling it harden and he moans, twice, and by then her lips are on his. “You lost,” he chuckles into her mouth and catches her wrists when she attempts to replace his hands for hers. “Lie down. You’ve lost a bet. And we’re crap at roleplaying, so let me just do my thing, okay?”_

 

_She gives him a pout on her way down onto the rug but she doesn’t challenge him. “You didn’t try at all.”_

_“And you were way too easy,” he quips, following her down as she huffs at him._

_“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes and spreading her legs for him which is at once both an hilariously_ Rey _thing to do and endlessly sexy. “Do me how you want then, if we’re not gonna do it my way.”_

 

_Maybe, if they had the time, he could go along with her roleplaying idea, but as it is, Kylo can’t get into pretending. He doesn’t feel seductive right now, just raw and adoring, falling to his knees between Rey’s thighs. Her very slight pout dies a quick death against his lips, she’s what he wants - not some stranger, not something out of a romance novel, but this woman who wraps her arms tight around him like he could do anything but fall into her. Rey, who could kick his ass if she put her mind to it and believes fiercely in saving lives, even his, who says she loves him in childish voices and mourns cookie dough and does stupid things to his hair._

_Kylo teases the places where she’s ticklish, earning himself a kick followed up by a moan when he slides his fingers lower, and they go on like that. Balancing ridiculousness with the unrelenting sparks of sensuality that always fly between them. He builds her up quickly, fucking her into the carpet efficiently up until Rey complains about rugburn and they both devolve into shoving and teasing each other. He flips onto his back, inviting her to take the reigns, and when Kylo comes with Rey above him chuckling and straddling his hips, his breath catches on a laugh and a moan at the same time._

 

_She collapses forward onto his chest for a few minutes, catching their breath together before Rey demands to be carried to the bedroom and Kylo obeys. She might only ask because he hasn’t been particularly sly about hiding his odd fixation with carrying her around, but he likes it regardless._

_By all rights, he should fall straight to sleep, but despite the comfort of the day, Kylo takes a while before sleep finds him. When he finally does drop off, he’s dead to the world for a handful of hours, but he wakes restless and can only drift in and out of consciousness, lulled by Rey’s presence beside him, and yet unable to ignore his mind turning things over that have no place in their peaceful reprieve._

 

***

 

Rey wakes up on her own, blinking twice and is immediately startled because Ben is lying on his side next to her, eyes trained firmly on her face, like he’s been watching her sleep for a while. “Why are you awake?” she grumbles, because this is highly unusual, for him to be up before her.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says and it shows, the circles under his eyes more pronounced than usual.

“Want me to put you back?” She’s still a bit groggy but she’s always up for him, no matter what time of day and she likes the thought of slow, savory sex to put them both back to sleep but he shakes his head, nuzzling against her.

“That’s a great offer but I can’t focus,” he says. “I’ve been thinking. Some things aren’t adding up.”

“Sounds serious,” she yawns and struggles for clarity. “Can you make coffee so I can pay proper attention?”

He hums a yes and kisses her before standing, leaving her to her own devices while he rummages around in the kitchen across the hall. Rey does nothing but lie there, smelling the sheets he’s slept in. She’s more comfortable than she has been in days, peaceful even. And the change of scenery is perfect to indulge a bit in the fantasy that they’re set apart from reality, that this is who they really are, just two people in a cabin. Safe and in love. When Ben is back, two steaming mugs in hand, he passes her one and climbs over her, sitting and waiting for her to do the same. “Good morning.”

 

Rey takes two generous sips, rubbing her eyes with her free hand and she probably looks tragic and bleary anyway. “So, what’s bothering you?”

“What that guy was telling Hux, at the meeting,” he replies, frowning into his own coffee. “About the center. I know that organization, Hux shouldn’t be having anything to do with them.”

“The center for missing children,” she recapitulates. “Maybe they just talked about it in passing?”

 

“I don’t think so…” He pauses like he’s still not sure why he’s feeling queasy. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“What are you suspecting?” She turns to him and sits cross-legged under her blanket, signaling her full attention somewhat restored.

“I’m thinking I haven’t seen them trying to ship anything _into_ the country,” he mutters, putting it together as he speaks. “And that guy, I’m sure I know him from somewhere, and I doubt it’s China, since I haven’t ever been to the damn country. And an American organization doesn’t look twice at records for foreign kids. So he shouldn’t be involved in the first place.”

“What are you saying? They’re doing this domestic?” The thought is startling. Not that it matters where the children come from, but it does hit a bit closer to home, even if just by a fraction.

“I think they might be,” he sounds upset. “Or at least, I think that might be where the supply is coming from.” Supply has a different ring to it now, like his mind went exactly where hers did.

 

“The system,” she says and puts her coffee away. In a different life, this could’ve been them. Two lost kids plucked from foster homes and sold into slavery, helpless and innocent just looking for a home and getting hell instead. It makes her sick to her stomach.

“It makes sense,” he nods. “It’s easy-access if they can fake placements or adoptions. Get the right social worker and it’s a walk in the park.”

“So Burgundy is a social worker?” Rey tries to remember the appearance of the man and it would fit, he was gruff but still not repulsive, more imposing than intimidating and she could see someone like him being a social worker; the tough kind, one to straighten out boys and youths that fell off the wagon.

“He’s...someone like that.” Ben is palpably frustrated, shaking his head hard like it’ll jog a memory. “I can’t shake the feeling I know him from somewhere. Maybe saw him when I was still being passed around or something.”

“Lie down,” she tells him, she’s got a plan. He gives her a look of mild confusion but follows her order, setting the cup aside and shuffling to his backside. She smoothes out the frown on his forehead with gentle pressure of her fingers and runs her hands through his hair while she talks.

 

“Close your eyes, relax.” Her voice is measured, low and murmuring, like she was taught. It’s not exactly regression and she’s no hypnotist but this is a strategy for investigators dealing with eye-witnesses whose memory has gone fuzzy over time or circumstance. “Go back to when you were a boy. After you were placed in the system. Remember the first day away from home.” She gives him a moment to follow where she leads. “Is he there?”

“No, that was- I knew the cops, the workers,” he says visibly struggling.

“After your first placement?” She keeps at his hair. That’s obviously not what she would do talking to a real witness but she knows Ben can be calmed by touch and so she continues, trying to steady him in his struggle for recollection. “Don’t fight so much, relax, let it flow through you.”

“It was...before you. I think…” he breathes, eye flickering under his lids like he’s dreaming. “He was there when they moved me out of state. I didn’t know him, he didn’t talk to me, but he- Yeah, he was there.”

“Good. Is there anything more you remember?”

“No,” he says after a moment, blinking his eyes open and looking up at her somewhat apologetic. “That was almost two decades ago, and I wasn’t exactly picking up details. I don’t even know what he was doing there, just that he was one of the authorities. Had that same pursed look, like he’s always annoyed.”

She nods and thinks, walking herself mentally through what their next step in light of this new revelation have to be. “This ruins our weekend, doesn’t it?” That’s what she comes back with as bottom line. “We’re gonna have to find out who he is and what he does and what Hux is planning.” They need to get back to the city, to start researching and puzzle this out. They have to and she knows it but she can’t get herself to move, not when this bed is the best place she’s known in months and months. It would be best if she wanted to gather her things and get to work but she doesn’t, she just wants this day with him, in their hideout, away from the shadows. Just this one more day.

 

“We should…” he says but sounds about as reluctant as she feels, gathering her hands from his forehead to fiddle with them. “I don’t want to leave yet. One more day?”

She bends down, so her hair falls like a curtain over his chest and she rests her forehead there, equal parts shame and elation. “Is it horrible that I was hoping you were gonna say that?” It is, she is a bad agent, potentially a bad person. They have a new lead and she should follow it, should have nothing else on her mind, but she does. “I’m horrible.”

“Selfish, yes. Horrible, no.” He says and when he goes on the justification is lacing his voice thick and she can’t tell if it’s for her benefit or his own. “Hux probably still won’t speak to me anyway, and Phasma has nothing to do for you. We can research as well here as anywhere else, right?”

 

Maybe that’s a good compromise. Research a bit from here. She will. She will research, any minute she isn’t on top of him, maybe that’ll do. And there is something else potentially unpleasant to get out of the way. If she gets that over with now, maybe she won’t feel so guilty for taking this time with him purely for herself.

“Technically we could get that talk of focus out of the way now, too.” Yes, she said she’d rather do that clothed and vertically but they’re at least partially clothed and sitting up so maybe it’ll still work. “Because this is it. This is where I’d need to be focused on my job, instead of wanting to stay here with you until everyone else has died of old age.”

“Okay. And I don’t mean we have to stop wanting that kind of thing. God knows I’d rather stay here with you. But we’re not -” She can tell he’s gearing up for hard talk and she knows it’s coming, because it’s been sitting at the back of her own head all the same. “I’m not all there is to you, and you’re not all there is to me, and we need to remember that.”

 

He scooches up now, so he can be level with her and he has to let go of her hands to do it. It feels like putting distance between them and she doesn’t know it that helps or makes it a little worse. Rey tries to be as reflected and as honest as she can be, with herself and with him and her verdict isn’t the best but it’s no use to sugar-coat it, not even for his sake but for her own. “You’re right. It’s just, in the moment, I… I forget. I look at you and it’s like, the world gets really small.” What might sound like a romantic declaration is really just matter-of-fact, evidenced by the last couple of days and her stupid decisions. She’s lost sight of a couple of things she shouldn’t have lost sight on and it’s important that he knows she’s aware of it.

“I know,” he says softly and leans in to kiss her, gentle and sweet. “I’m the same way. The difference is I’m, I don’t want to say _allowed_ , but the people I’d sacrifice for you aren’t going to get me in trouble with the law. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say you’re restricted and I’m not, that’s-” He huffs, apparently frustrated with himself and his inability to find the words he must be looking for. “That’s not fair.”

 

“But it’s true,” she shrugs and when she goes on, she’s quieter. “I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger if it wasn’t life or death. But I just couldn’t…” She hopes he knows, that he understands why she did what she did in that alley, that he sees she can barely breathe just imagining a different outcome. “I couldn’t let you die.”

He fixes her intensely, his lips a tight line for a second and then he exhales, like he’s been holding his breath. “That- I think I needed to hear that.” In an afterthought, with his hand finding her knee, he ads, “thank you, since I never said it, for saving my life.”

“It was selfish, evidently.” Maybe she should’ve just let things run their cause but where would she be? Right now, if she had. “I don’t want to know what it would feel like if you didn’t exist anymore.”

“Nobody wants to lose someone they love, Rey. You’re no more selfish than anybody else,” he says. “I can’t let anything happen to you either, and I can’t stand the idea of you being put away for trying to help people. I couldn’t protect you like that, and cops don’t do well in prison.”

 

“I will try very hard not to go to jail. I promise,” she says and means it, but if the fact that she shot an agent does come to light, there might be no way around it.

“Alright, I’ll hold you to that,” he huffs and laughs almost bitterly. “Thank god, that woman lived and they won’t try to pin malicious intent on you. If they do, we’ll...I don’t know, we’ll find a way to spin it. Tell them you thought the gun was aimed at you.”

“We’ll see.” Should worse come to worse, she’s pretty resolved to take the chance of defending herself but telling him that flat out will start an argument she’s not prepared to have right now. It’s enough trying to get herself in the right space to talk about what’s really going on below, the crux of it all, the whole thing; why she shot Harrison, while she unraveled so spectacularly when he walked away from her, why she drank his cabinets empty and went to Hux to blur the rest of her senses.  

 

“I just-” It’s mortifying, trying to use the words she knows she has to. “Uh, this is hard.” Humiliated and ashamed as she feels, she needs to looks hard at her hands on the blanket and half pretend Ben isn’t there at all, but even so, it’s as if she’s sitting in the confession booth, not ready to deal with the truth.

“It was never going to be easy. So long as we both think it’s worth the effort,” he says reassuringly and takes the hands she’s so focused on. “Just tell me.”

“I know I’m a little intense, I _know_ that,” she starts and closes her eyes. If she ever thought dirty talking him was hard, this is infinitely harder. She could tell him she wants him to bend her over, fuck her blind from behind and pump his cock into her until he’s close and come on her tits thirty times over now if it meant she didn’t have to have the conversation they have to have.

 

“Sometimes I’m worried about it, sometimes I’m just worried you think I’m a lunatic or… needy and ridiculous.” That’s one infinitely embarrassing fact. That she is at times more worried that he might be turned off by her clinginess, more so than she is annoyed with herself for being that way. She used to look down so hard on people who got so lost in their relationships that their world seemed to revolve solely around their partner. But now when she looks at him, he’s the center of the universe and instead of being righteously mad at her stupid self, she’s just afraid _he’ll_ look down at her for it. “I was never...addicted to anything but, I don’t know, sometimes I feel a little like I am now.” She carefully pries her hands from his grip to bury her burning face in them. To her, what she feels for him is beautiful, so beautiful it’s easier to get totally lost in it than to try and keep her head on straight, but it’s neither smart nor wise.

 

His look tells her as much at least when she sneaks a glance through her fingers. He flails for a second as if he wants to reach out one moment, then pulls back, out out, like he might want to get swallowed by the ground. “I don’t think you’re...any of that. I think-” She closes her eyes, just listening and trying not to imagine his face move over the words. “It scares me sometimes, honestly. You have a million ideas and I can’t keep up, I can’t be...all those things. I’m not everything, I can’t be, that’s not a person, that’s a dream. I love you. I’ll do my best. But you have to know I’ll let you down time and again and start looking at me as who I am.”

 

“I do, I am. Sober, and rationally. I know all of that,” she says, taking her face out of her hand but still not looking at him anyway. “The thing is I want you flaws and all, I don’t really have that great big fantasy of you. I know exactly who you are and I still feel that way. But I’m working on it. It’ll mellow out. I’ll do my best.”

“Would it help if we were separated more?” He’s trying but he obviously doesn’t understand yet why she’s got it so bad. She has to huff out a laugh, beside herself.

“Yeah, no, I don’t know,” she says. “It would help if I wasn’t going to lose you every second. If we were normal people. If you’d text me too much or not enough and leave the toilet seat up or steal food from my plate. That would help. Just… everyday life. If I could just, get a tiny bit used to you. If that’s at all possible. But that’s not gonna happen. I never know when this is gonna be over and I can’t relax.”

“Look, I’ve survived a lot, I’m very hard to get rid of. And until you tell me you want nothing more to do with me, I’m not leaving you. This, whatever we’re doing, might end and I might spend the rest of my life behind bars, yeah. But it’s not…” She can see him trying to get her to meet his eye. But she can’t. “You don’t have to try to hold on like it’s going to slip away forever. Wherever I am, if you want me, I’ll be there for you.”

 

“I tried my whole life not to be this person. I’m sorry.” If one could distil insecurity into a sound, her voice would be it and it's blazingly embarrassing. “It’s… a little pathetic. I was always so good on my own, I swear. I got my life, I got myself. I can be alone. I just don’t want to be.”

“You won’t,” and now apparently, he has enough of her hiding away from him and tugs at her until he can wrap his arms around her and her forehead rests on his shoulder. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to, you just can’t let it scare you this much.” He goes on to tell her what she already knew. “It was...terrifying, hearing you that night, like your whole world would end if I left, like all you were was mine. You’re more than that. You’re mine, too. But you’re more, you know that.”

 

“Yeah well, in my defense, you were kind of walking out on me,” she says, more or less into his armpit. “I wasn’t particularly level-headed.”

“You’re talking to the guy who dealt with his own addiction by nailing the door shut and going cold turkey. That was best for me,” he murmurs, nudging her head with his own. “It’s not good for everybody, but for me it worked. Made sense at the time.”

“You’re my drugs in this analogy?” Rey huffs against his skin, her hot breath thrown back at her. “Sounds fair.”

“I don’t want to be,” he says vehemently, like this is the one point he wants to make. “I really, _really_ don’t. I want to be your support.”

“So I’m gonna try to be a little more healthy,” she says, for him and for herself. There’s no way around it, they live in a real world, like she said and she needs to remember it.

“Just tell me how to help you. I know I need to stop trying to control everything.” He gathers her head into his hands, moving her away so this time, she has to look at him. His eyes are kind, features even, an apology somewhere around the lines of his forehead.

“And let me make my own decisions,” she continues his thought. “You can tell me if they’re crappy. But let me make ‘em. Because that’s when I start spiraling, when I feel you’re just not hearing me.”

 

“Okay,” he sounds guilty, almost sheepish. “I spent a lot of time taking care of you, it’s hard to let go.”

“I’m grateful for that. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I gotta grow up.”

“We both do, in different ways.” He strokes his thumb over her cheek, holding her gaze, trying to pour into her that way what he can’t say. She blinks, wishing she could just read his mind.

“You don’t think I’m completely insane and pitiful, do you?” And it’s a legitimate question he treats as one, giving her some moments of genuine consideration before he answers.

“No. I think maybe you got a little lost, but you’ll be fine.”

“It’s a lot to process,” she nods. “I never had anything like this before.”

“Man, I hope not,” he says, his lips spread in a crooked smile that begs to be kissed.

“Idiot,” she snorts and hugs him tight. “It’s a good start that we talked about it, I think. I’m proud of us. Was a very healthy, grown-up thing to do. Sufficiently uncomfortable and awkward.”

 

“Being adults is terrible.” Ben plucks her from his body but only to kiss her hard. “Has some good perks though.” And he takes a moment to tuck her hair back behind her ears and then his features shift into a frown, like he just thought of something new. “Please don’t stop. Loving me.” He sounds vulnerable but looks even more so and there’s something behind his eyes that says ‘Maybe I made a terrible mistake telling you to take a step back from this’. She can’t really say anything to that, because how could he be taking that away from their conversation, that she’s gonna come out on the other side not loving him anymore?

 

So she kisses him, raking her fingers over his scalp and it’s the kind of kiss that gets her in over her head, stumbling over herself until she’s working her tongue against his and he sucks in her lips, building up to more, so efficiently that he uses his weight to tip her over, so she’s on her back with him hovering above, his erection pressing against her thigh. But maybe it’s not time for that yet, maybe that conversation isn’t over yet, if anything, she should make sure it is before she derails it so far they won’t remember where they left off.

“Anything _you_ wanna talk about? She asks him, breathlessly while he’s hard at work at her throat. He sighs and pauses his efforts and she can practically hear him deliberate if he wants to talk or go on kissing her. He hesitates for a long moment before he talks, the first option winning against what his body is building up for quickly.

 

“I don’t know what scares me more, that there’s all this...everything in the way, or that you might just...stop,” he says, obviously still hung up on that idea that _he_ could lose _her_ somehow. “Not because it’s too hard. Just because you don’t feel anything for me anymore.”

And that’s ridiculous. “Babe,” she mutters, a little incredulous. “We just talked about how I might need to check into relationship-rehab for like half an hour.”

“And that’s not good, we both know that,” he grits out and goes on like he’s telling a horrible secret. “But still. I don’t want to be like this, but I’m- I’m bad at doing things halfway. It seems like if you start pulling back a little, it might not stop. That’s awful and it’s the opposite of what I need to be to help, I’m sorry.”

 

“No. I understand,” she hurries to answer, to put him at ease, like he just did her. Knowing that he’s scared too makes everything better, knowing that she’s not the only one struggling trying to love him an acceptable amount but that he, in turn, is struggling to let her, it makes it easier. Because like that, it’s a shared effort, not just one asking the other to chill out a bit - it’s them trying to try for a little more healthy partnership and a little less codependent, headless mess. It means they’re in this together. It means he does love her, enough to be afraid that she might leave him of she works herself out of her slight obsession. Which is of course never gonna happen.

“This- what you mean to me, that’s not gonna go away. I can _feel_ it,” she tells him because it’s true, touching his heart again, reminding him of that time when she had wiggled his confession from his terrified deathgrip, tangled up around him in the same make and model of the bed they’re lying in now. He follows the trail of her hand, studying her fingers and looks like he’s miles away.

 

“Ben?” She says softly, just to run his name across her lips, as a way to let him know she’s got him, she’s always gonna have him, right there, to make sure he hears her. His eyes flicker up to her like he did and he nods, swallowing hard.

“Can you say it again?” It’s a quiet plea, bare and raw.

“Say what?” She thinks for a second and goes on. “I’m not gonna leave, even when I get to some normal level of loving you, praise be, I’ll still love you.”

“No.” He shakes his head, ever so slightly. “Can you say my, my name again? It feels real when you say it.”

“Ben,” she says immediately, following it up with a light peck on his lips. “Ben Solo.” Another kiss, harder, more urgent. “My Ben.” His breathing is shaky when she pulls away, resting her head back on the pillow with him towering over her, his eyes wild and loud.

“I love you,” he whispers and rolls his body onto hers.

 

His hands are tender, almost halting on her, like he’s continuing their conversation with his touches, secure, pulling and tugging a little but then letting her go, letting her pace herself, so she’s not clawing but reaching, not biting but tasting, not consuming him but loving him.

“We’ll...always...have this,” he stammers once he’s wrapped her in his arms, the big-spoon behind her and long limbs enveloping her completely, thrusting steadily, deep and revelling. And he’s right, no matter what the future holds, they’re together now and if she goes a little bit insane, she’ll figure out how to deal with it. He’ll love her, even when she’s out of line, she’ll love him even when he’s being an asshole. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

 

***

 

_The internet connection at the cabin is for shit, but after a bit of poking around, Rey and Kylo are able to determine that looking up various social workers in New York would take more time than they have, and that Ben’s records are sealed. He’ll have to go in and find the paper copies if he wants any details from when he was turned over to the state. For lack of any more productive work to do with their limited resources, he and Rey spend the rest of the day coexisting and firing theories at each other. They have solid suspicions about how all the pieces connect together, so by the time Kylo has his own history in paper before him, it’s more a matter of connecting faces to names and confirming those suspicions._

 

_He finds the photo he’s looking for in a public records office back in New York, alongside a court-order for placement outside of Massachusetts. He’d already pissed off the owner of the boys’ home he’d been originally placed in, and it says as much in more neutrally-worded legalese. One of the social workers asked for references regarding placement is Vaughn, referred to only by name, but it jogs Kylo’s memory enough. The man had been much younger then, but it was a Mr. Vaughn who asked about how he was fitting in and ultimately recommended a new living situation with a smaller group._

_Their burgundy friend is currently working for an adoption agency, as Rey’s access to more records leads them to find. It’s nothing fancy, a privately-owned facility that cooperates with the state-run orphanages and foster homes, but it gives them enough to connect Vaughn to the suspected trafficking._

 

 _“We need paper proof of Hux’s involvement with the agency,” Kylo points out once they’ve collected all the trails they’ve managed to work out. “It’s not going to be anywhere I have access to.” They have no proof of_ what _Hux was meeting with Vaughn about, beyond their own suspicions, and it’s not enough to tie everything together. Hux is sure to wriggle his way out of it unless they have solid evidence, and so far everything is pretty circumstantial._

_“You think he has that in writing in the first place?” Rey asks, justifiably skeptical._

_“Most likely.” In all fairness, it probably won’t be spelled out or simple to find, but Hux learned from Florida that he’s not as good at keeping track of things as his former arrogance had assumed. “Hux is a trained businessman, he’ll have it written in some form probably only he understands, but he’ll have the records. If only to provide Snoke with justification for where the Order is spending money.”_

 

_Rey nods, accepting the logic of it. “Then we’ll have to stop by his place and look for it.” She shuffles together the paper copies Kylo had brought home, covering the terrible quality photo of himself at age eleven with some hesitance. “I could try and...distract him while you find yourself a way inside?”_

_“No. I need to smooth things over with him anyway, I’ll take him, you get inside.” She’d likely be a better choice for scavenging through Hux’s apartment for evidence anyway. Kylo has always worked in terms of people and hard cash, still struggling to keep up with what qualifies as evidence when it’s not blood and bodies. “Think you can find enough if I can give you two hours with his apartment empty?”_

 

_“I’m good at finding things,” Rey confirms. “We still need a strategy for if things go south. I’ll say I was looking for more drugs?”_

_“If it comes to that,” he agrees begrudgingly, only because nothing else comes to mind that would be believable. “If that’s the story we have to fall back on, be prepared for a screaming fight.”_

_“Between us?” Rey seems taken aback by that, but it makes perfect sense to him. Any version of him would be upset if she’d broken into Hux’s apartment for drugs._

_“Yes. Hux knows I was, ah.” Kylo looks away from her, fiddling with the edge of his shirt. “- not pleased the first time you went to his place for a bump, I’ll be furious if it happens again.” It wouldn’t be difficult to call up the expected rage either, and that’s frankly not a notion Kylo likes at all. He doesn’t want to shout at her, but the loss of control, the failure implied by that cover story creeps under his skin to tease out the violence he’s so often used like an old ally._

 

_“Let’s just not get caught then,” Rey says carefully. He’s sure she can read the growing storm of his thoughts on his face, and her discomfort makes it easier to let it go._

_“That’s the plan,” he agrees, folding her hand in his. They plan it out well enough, access from the roof, Rey telling him she’s confident in being able to bypass any security measures in place. He wants to protest, but Kylo trusts her when it comes down to it, and they honestly don’t have many better options unless they want to keep sitting around and waiting for opportunities to fall into their laps._

 

_He invites Hux to a restaurant he knows the man likes, conveniently one that should have a long line and atmospherically slow service. Hux gets to play up his importance, getting the maitre’d to skip them ahead of the line for a table, and Kylo does his bit of grovelling. Hux’s black eye is coming along nicely, swollen purple and shiny though his eye is still open, and Kylo tries very hard not to enjoy the sight. Instead, he apologies, the words practically burning his tongue with how damn false it is. The only thing he’s sorry for is that he hadn’t had the time and opportunity to put Hux in the ground._

_Still, his apology is accepted with the smug sort of tone belonging to a man who thinks it’s owed to him. Kylo plays along with Hux’s advice to keep his ‘little lady’ on a shorter leash, and only offers the hint of a threat when Hux offers to teach her a lesson should she stray again. His heart is in his throat at the suggestion, hoping he can keep Hux busy long enough that Rey will be well clear by the time he gets back to his apartment._

 

_That thought smooths his frayed edges and makes the part easier to play. The longer it takes for him and Hux to come to what will likely be a less-than-pleasant parting of ways, the longer Rey has to find what they need and get out. He keeps an eye on his watch and manages to drag an hour and a half out by the time dinner service wraps up, claiming the need for a drink. He spins a story about reminding Rey of her place while they’ve been gone, says he’s going to be keeping a closer eye on her, implying through his own faked weariness that his lessons have left Rey in no position to leave his apartment without him._

_It’s disgusting, makes his skin crawl, but it makes Hux laugh and agree to a round of drinks, buying another twenty minutes. Rey should be in the clear as far as time goes. Still, he sends off a text warning Hux’s estimated time of arrival, following Hux’s car at a safe distance once they leave._

 

_***_

 

After a couple of increasingly rabid tries, the door to the roof of Hux’s penthouse budges and Rey creeps across it in the shadows of night. The trickiest and most dangerous part of it all is lowering herself on the relatively short rope she brought onto his balcony. She’s standing on the thin sunroof, the rope tied to a somewhat reliable looking pipe and shuffles forward on her belly to find the edge. It’s terrifying but she has no time to be scared, of the height or the risk of falling, how she’ll be dead before she hits the ground if she slips and the rope gives way. Instead, she uses her muscle to lower herself, holding on all by herself like the edge of the roof is a training bar, careful to keep her body tensed meticulously so she lands on her feet. Her heart beats like crazy when she draws her first breath on solid ground again, her hands shaking so much that she has to take a second to compose herself before she can unclasp the snap-hook. But she made it, in one piece and her pride propels her on.

 

The next step is disabling his security system and the best and quickest way to do that is by jamming the frequency of it. It’s a good thing she requested some little gadgets like the one in her small backpack for moments like this. The device just needs to be latched onto the antenna at the far end of his balcony and will do it’s job from there - upsetting the communication between sensors and system and blurring the camera images enough for her to go unnoticed if she’s smart and quick. From there, getting his glass door open is simple breaking and entering.

 

Inside she moves quickly, going through his bedroom first and finding nothing but some disturbing gagging and binding equipment that looks like it’s thoroughly uncomfortable and used way too often. She can’t say she’s surprised Hux would be into that, the women he keeps not just subdued by drugs but by actual ties as well. It’s as predictable as it is disturbing because Rey seriously doubts that Hux adheres to any of the rules she knows BDSM culture has. She bets he just uses it to inflict pain and get his pleasure through that. She shakes the thoughts physically, because she has to focus and she makes her way room to room until she finds a somewhat hidden latch in one of his kitchen cabinets that opens a second compartment beneath which is filled with files. They hold nothing of interest so she goes on, searching for latches and finding them all over the place.

 

When documents start grabbing her attention, entirely too much time has passed and she scrambles to take pictures of everything, not nearly satisfied when her phone vibrates with Ben’s text, telling her to hurry, that Hux is almost at the building. It’s a narrow escape she makes, trying to leave no trace of her trespassing and nearly forgetting the jamming device before she snaps herself back in and balances on the railing of his balcony for a terrifying moment before hoisting herself back up onto the roof, just when the light is switched on one floor beneath her.

 

“Drive,” she bellows to Ben when she darts into his waiting car at the back of Hux’s building and he does, speeding away from the scene and glancing at her empty hands. He obviously expected to see something to show for their trouble.

“What’d you find?” he asks, making a left into the wrong direction to outdrive the nightly traffic.

“Not a fucking copy machine that’s for sure,” she says, not angry with him, just not pleased with the situation. “I got pictures of everything but the originals were so neatly filed, I didn’t dare to take ‘em. How is he such a ruinous asshole and still so damn _organized_?”

“It’s in his blood. His father ran books for the mob,” Ben shrugs. “So what do we have?”

“A bunch of stuff about the docks and logistics and then stacks of pages in code. I think it’s code at least,” she says, watching tourists being replaced by locals as they drive away from midtown and into Harlem. “And contracts. For dog breeding, filed in the same cabinet. Hux isn’t into dog breeding, is he?”

“I genuinely have no idea on that one,” he replies in mild surprise. “We can take a look at the pictures at home, see what we can piece together.”

“Well, I think those are placeholder contracts,” she mutters, in thought. “The dogs aren’t real, I’m sure of it. How’d it go with him?”

 

“Almost suspiciously well,” he says and frowns. “He was pissed, obviously, but either he’s more grateful for not getting tossed off his balcony than I could’ve assumed, or something’s fishy.”

“More fishy than stealing kids from children’s homes and selling them to Asia?” She raises an eyebrow at him, wondering if there is any way at all Hux can get more suspicious.

“The usual level of boot-licking wasn’t there,” he says but shrugs it off eventually. “Hux probably just had long enough to cool off, and we did well for him last time. I’d have been hard pressed not to do worse to him given what you are to me anyway, he knows that.”

“Maybe he’s just even more scared of you now,” she says because that’s just as likely.

His responding grin bears a passing resemblance to a shark and it’s entirely joyless. “Well. There’s always that.”

 

She scans all the pictures again the entire way home and prints them all out for closer inspection as soon as she’s through the door, laying them all out on the floor. Ben joins her, glancing over the majority of his studio decked in pictures.

“What do you think?” she asks him, waving him over to contribute.

 

“I think we look like a proper investigation team,” he says with little humor. “And that I don’t know the first thing about putting all this together from an investigative standpoint.”

“Don’t need you to,” she says. “I need you to put this together from a Hux standpoint. You know him. You know how he works.”

“Carefully. Like it’s a business plan, he’ll have covered his tracks thinking like a bookie,” Ben looks like he’s less than excited delving into Hux’ mind space but he does it anyway. “Show me the dog thing, that sounded weird.”

Without having to think about it, Rey points him to the section of the floor where she’s spread out the papers and watches him sit down to fiddle with them. She scooches over to him, resting her cheek against his arched back as he reads, mumbling to himself and thinking out loud.

“Hux can’t be breeding dogs… and dog fighting’s not our turf at all. It’s gotta be something else,” he murmurs, shuffling a few things like he’s jogging thoughts. “They’re not going anywhere, is the thing. There’s no listed kennel, just a street address.”

 

“I googled it,” Rey tells him, having stumbled over the same thing in the car. “It’s a dead end. Literally. A street in Jersey going absolutely nowhere.” She wonders if her idea will make sense to him, if she has a point of if maybe she’s finally gone too cynical for her own good. “But Ben, look. Those are orders for puppies. Wouldn’t it be just like Hux to falsify documents ordering puppies when he’s really ordering people? Like this is his perverted idea of a shopping list?”

He looks at her for a second, his face a grimace split evenly between recognition and disgust. “That does sound like Hux,” he says. “And in that case, the destination is less relevant than the origin and who’s getting the order. If puppies means kids, they’re moving a small amount first, translating one to one, which would make sense. He’s been more careful the last couple years, I don’t think Hux would go for a broke on an untested route and supply.”

 

Rey nods, moving away from him to gather all the contracts and count. “That’s eleven kids.” She hands him the stack, each paper now meaning a life, an innocent they both vowed to protect. “Likely provided by our burgundy friend. Straight out of the system.” Each and every one of these kids could’ve been them in another life. Ben seems outwardly unfazed but she can tell from the twitch in his jaw that he’s on edge, intent on doing what he can to save those kids.

“We need a time table. Hux said we’re wrapping up with the guys at the docks, putting our own men in place soon. It can’t be too far out,” he says. “We need to be ready.”

“Have you seen those numbers?” She points out the bottom left corner on every contract in her hands. “They coincide with those over here.” Rey has to half climb over him to reach a sheet of the coded letters. “They’re like a numeric anagram, the same numbers for all of them.”

“Think it’s a date or something?” He asks, obviously coming to the same conclusion as her.

“I do, yeah,” she says and plucks the pen from where she’s put it in her hair a while ago. She writes down the numbers from the contracts. Once she has them all neatly lined up, the picture they paint is obvious. There is only one combination that would make a realistic date in the near future.

 

“Tuesday,” Ben says, looking at the numbers.

“Fucking Tuesday,” she repeats. “That’s gotta be the delivery date.”

“But it’s too soon, we’re not changing over-,” and then he pauses, eyes going wide and then narrow. “No, that makes perfect sense. Run the first shipment with a bunch of guys that aren’t known to be on the First Order’s payroll, so if anything goes south, there’s less to tie us to it.”

“Sounds like a safeguard Hux would put in place.” Ben nods. “I’m gonna have to make the drop on them then,” she says and he answers with a grumble.

“You gotta disappear,” she says at the same time that he says: “I gotta get in on the gig at the docks.”

There is a moment of silence as they both puzzle out what the other has said while they were talking and then another as faces and resolves harden and they’re evidently opposed.

“I’m not disappearing on you,” Ben says, affronted and she is almost spiteful enough to tell him he has done that a couple of times with no second thoughts.

“Don’t be like that,” she says instead. “I told you it’s the only way to keep you safe. You just go back to the cabin, tell Hux you’re prolonging your getaway. You hide out there until the storm’s blown over and then move down south.”

“I just finished telling him I’m going to be keeping a closer eye on you, and he knows we’re back in the city,” he says and she thinks he would tell her that even if nothing of it was true at all. “And I’m not leaving.”

 

“Ben,” she grabs his arm in an appeal, a plea. “Don’t play the hero.”

“Those guys that he’s working with are under my orders, I can make sure we get everybody out if I’m there,” he argues, getting louder and more tense as he speaks and then when he goes on, she realises why he’s suddenly so upset, “And nothing about this is _playing_ , Rey.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she hurries, stroking out his skin soothingly and kisses his arm. “Please. I know you mean well and it’s very honourable. But please just do this for me. Just run.”

“No,” he repeats, obviously resolved to be completely immovable on this. “If there’s an opportunity to run once I’m sure you and all those kids are safe, then I’ll go, but I’m not putting all of that up to chance.” As she fixes him, she is well aware that it’s no use to press the issue further right now. That’s not to say she’s discouraged. She will try again, with every trick in her toolbox but for now she can let it go.

“Okay,” she says. “Then we have to set this up quickly and quietly.”

“Okay,” he echoes her, looking relieved. “You talk to your people, I’ll reach out to Hux, tell him we’re both restless to get back in the action. Maybe I can push him into getting us both in on the op.”

 

Rey wants to get up to go to work and she’s half back on her feet when a thought hits that immobilizes her, making her sink back down to her knees. “That’s just two more days.” _Of this, of us_ , she thinks. Two days is sparse at best for preparing a counter op but it’s even less than that in the scope of their relationship. They only just figured it out and now a meek two days is all that they’ve left to be together? How could that ever be enough?

“I know,” he says, his tone suggesting he’s been following her train of thought. “Let’s not spend it fighting, okay?” He reaches over to cup her cheek, looking like he plans to memorize her face for a moment before leaning in for a sweet and gentle kiss. “We can plan an exit strategy for me, alright? Just don’t make me leave before I have to.”

And that’s potentially the only thing that could sway her from trying to get him to flee, the prospect of having him leave even before he absolutely has to. “Ben, I just want you to know that-”

“Hey,” he interrupts her, fingers on her face. “Don’t say goodbye to me, okay?”

 

It’s a feat getting up and walking away from him, even if it’s just for how long it takes to pick up the phone and tell Poe Dameron that they have to talk asap. It’s harder leaving the apartment because it already feels like she is never coming back and as she closes the door behind her, she thinks that she has to gather up her stuff and pack soon - that she has to pick her laundry apart from his and her toothbrush from his bathroom and it doesn’t make sense because she feels like his studio is hers just as much. It’s home. And now she has to leave it behind. She busies herself preparing for her meeting with Dameron so she doesn’t cry all the way over to the pier.

 

“We have a problem,” she tells him when he sits down beside her on the bench, Beebee Eight significantly grown but still with youthful excitement frolicking around their legs. Rey gives him a rundown of the whole trafficking op Hux is planning and the imminent need to act to stop it.

“Rey, it’s gonna be a challenge to get everything together that quickly,” he says. “How reliable is your estimate for day and time on this?”

“It’s happening,” she affirms. “One hundred percent sure. Tuesday night.”

“You’ll need to be in touch the next couple of days, find an excuse to have your phone on you,” he says, nodding with his brow furrowed almost like she’s making this hard on purpose. “Organizing all this in two days is...it’ll be tough.”

“It has to work though. I’m sorry, I came here as soon as I found out,” she says and she’s not lying. God knows she could do with more time before all of this ends. “Sir, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Kenobi,” he smiles now. “I’d like to think we get along outside of work, you can always talk to me.”

“I’m not sure you’re gonna like this,” she mutters, looking across the water.

“Well, you wouldn’t have been nervous if it was good news,” he sighs. “Fire away.”

“It’s about Kylo Ren.” She takes a deep breath. “He doesn’t like that they’re moving in that direction. He’s all but told me that he’s been trying to sabotage it from the start.” She hopes that she can make it look like his late-onset humanity is making her fret for his life rather than the fact that she’s irrevocably in love with him. “He’s not...he’s not the enemy here.”

“The First Order is the enemy here, Kenobi,” Poe says, firmly. “He’s a part of that. A big part of it. I don’t know about this sabotage thing, but maybe he’s turning a new leaf. Either way, Kylo Ren is too far up the FBI’s most wanted for you to get cold feet now.”

 

“What’s gonna happen to him?” Rey tries for an even, uninvolved voice and can only hope it works.

“That really depends on him,” he considers. “If we can convince him to turn state’s evidence, and he agrees to corroborate your story, maybe a lightened sentence is in the cards.” She could half believe he is trying to be gentle, like he can tell his words hit close to home. “I know you think you know this guy, Rey, but he’s been a criminal for as longer than you’ve been on the force. That’s a mighty corner to turn.”

“I know,” she says and she wants to say more, something profound and true about Ben and how good he really is beneath it all but she can’t, not without giving away just how deeply she’s entangled with him.

“You’re a good agent, I trust your instincts. So if you think he’d be willing to work with us on this bust, I’ll spread the word he’s a likely witness. Might keep a few fingers from pulling triggers too early, but that’s the best I can offer you, Rey,” he says evenly, eying her from where he sits beside her. “Kylo Ren has a lot to answer for. And that’s not gonna be a slap on the wrist either. Even with a reduced sentence. He’s got connections, but if he gets pulled in, he’s going to be in jail for a very long time.” Rey swallows hard, vision blurry until she can get a hold of herself. It’s not like this is particular news, she’s known that, really, but hearing it like that is still a lot.

“Okay,” she says and blinks away whatever stubborn tears have crept into the corners of her eyes.

“Is there...something you should tell me?” Dameron sounds like he knows there is.

“No, sir,” she answers, entirely too quickly. “All good. I will contact you with the details of the op as they come in.”

“Very good,” her SSA mutters, obviously deciding not to press the issue, to turn around so he can have deniability. So they both can. “We’ll have a patrol keeping watch at the docks. Even if they get past us, there won’t be any boats leaving we haven’t checked stem to stern.”

Rey nods and thanks him, spends another moment stroking Beebee’s golden fur and then makes her way back to the apartment. The countdown has started and time is trickling away faster than she can hold on to it. These are the last forty-eight hours she gets with Ben, the way they are right now and she wants to waste not a single one of them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So..their time together is coming to an end. Are you ready?  
> Because we're not.


	10. CHAPTER TEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly the shortest chapter in this story, and I hope you guys are ready for what's coming next. It's all coming down to this, and the stark reality of it is things ain't pretty.
> 
> Bless you faithful souls who've been with us so far, and welcome and much love to anyone just joining us. Eternal thanks for your comments and input, they are a gift, each and every one!
> 
>  
> 
> SONG: War Paint by Fletcher

**CHAPTER TEN: [Watch Me Put My War Paint On For You]**

 

It’s Monday. It’s the Monday before the Tuesday when it all ends. And Hux calls Ben before lunch, about him and Rey being assigned to the operation at the docks. He’s mum on exactly what he wants them to do but he wants them both there and he’s gonna make it worth their while. As soon as Ben puts the phone down, he crosses from the room to the bed where Rey is sitting, typing up a report on the latest findings. He says nothing, he just takes the laptop from her hands and starts taking off her clothes.

 

After, they lie side by side under the covers, holding hands above and Rey pushes him to help her work out an exit strategy for him. The plan ends up being relatively straightforward. Ben will put everything he needs in his car, so it’s all set up to take him to his safe house. As soon as the kids are safe and Rey gives the signal for the drop, he will slip away and drive and not look back. That was a hard earned promise, wiggled from his very reluctant grip. She knows he’d rather stay in the vicinity, to make sure Rey is safe but she made her case intensely - for his safety rather than hers. She’ll cross over to her turf, back in her rightful place in society and she’ll be fine. He won’t be if her colleagues get their greedy hands on him.

 

***

 

_“How will I know you made it to safety?” Rey asks, playing with his fingers on the blankets. “We need a...code, some way to communicate without communicating.” For a woman who seemed so intent on separating work and pleasure, Rey’s multitasking skills have improved in the last day by leaps and bounds. She’s had no issue bullying him into agreeing to run off to safety when all’s said and done, extracting that promise from him while they’re both naked. It’s dirty pool, but Kylo knows they’re both a little desperate and he can’t hold it against her._

_“I’m assuming your email is just as unsafe as your phone,” he says, half a question, mostly an assumption. If it was that easy, they wouldn’t be having this discussion._

 

_“Probably.” Rey shrugs. “Let’s not write anything down.”_

_“That nixes the skywriter idea,” he mutters, and Rey busts into highly ungraceful laughter. It’s nice, that he can do that, make her laugh even in this moment with some stupid sarcastic joke. “How about the radio?” he asks when she’s calmed down, eyes still scrunched up from how wide her smile is._

_“Yeah,” Rey says through the last of her giggles. “Like what I did with Poe.” Her face goes thoughtful, and Ben reaches out a hand to smooth over where her forehead wrinkles in concentration. It earns him another smile and he grins back at her as she goes on. “We need a station we agree on.”_

_“Somewhere that broadcasts all over the city,” he agrees, nodding. “Just in case.”_

 

_“And one I can stand.” Rey tips another smile at him, a bit sardonic. “I’m gonna have to tune in every day at a specific time so you can get your message to me.”_

_“When’s lunch? I mean, when you’re working normal hours.” It’s strange to think about the mechanics of it, the real world more surreal than this tiny bubble of happiness they’ve built against all odds. Rey will be back to sitting at a desk, probably eating home-made sandwiches and listening to the radio for a song that will mean he hasn’t been caught._

_“Let’s make it the evening hours,” Rey says, shaking her head lightly, tapping her fingers against the back of his hand as she thinks. “You’re gonna put in a request for a song as soon as you’re safe and sound.”_

 

 _Kylo doesn’t say anything like ‘yes, I_ know _’ because Rey gets up in arms about his safety, and he doesn’t want to argue today, so he just nods along with bringing up what he thinks is a good point. “You might be tied up in...whatever you people do. I’ll just call every hour after I get there.”_

_“I’ll be listening, trust me,” Rey says with conviction. “Every day, for an hour, at seven.” Which is fine, except he has no way of knowing if his message will be received or if he’s sending out songs into empty air._

_“Are you gonna do the same? Somebody’s gonna notice if we keep requesting the same song on the same station.”_

 

_“Babe, you get away and I will sit in front of the radio every day until I hear the song and know that you’re safe.” It’s almost cute, how Rey manages to miss the fact that he’s just as worried about her safety as she is about his. It would be, if it weren’t so damn infuriating. “Then I’ll come to the cabin and we figure out where you can disappear to.”_

_“They’re just gonna let you go?” he asks, suspicious as another new and exciting way to worry about her shows itself. “After you’ve been undercover all this time?”_

_“I’m not a prisoner. Plus I have some sway with Poe. I can make it happen.”_

_“You ought to have someone watching your back,” he grumbles. It’s as stupid as staying in the same apartment after she’d found out who he was, and Kylo can’t believe he’s still surprised by Rey’s lack of concern for the things she can’t control. “There’s no way someone in the First Order won’t try something. You’d think the FB-fuckin-I would have a plan for that kind of thing.”_

 

_“I’ll be fine,” Rey says, obviously trying to be reassuring. “Trust me. There’s no alternative.”_

_“Fine, fine.” She places a kiss on his nose, and he wrinkles it in response, begrudgingly accepting that Rey has some kind of plan for herself in place, despite all evidence to the contrary. “What song are we gonna request?”_

_“I know one,” she says with a pointed look. “We danced to it.” And she would pick that one. Wasted as she’d been, Kylo has no doubt Rey’s memory of that night is clear, well-loved and polished to a shine._

_“Yeah, okay. We Belong, right?” he asks like he doesn’t know exactly what song she’s talking about, like he hasn’t cussed out Pat Benatar in his head a few times in the aftermath._

 

_“If that’s okay.” Rey’s voice is small, a little hesitant, and Kylo can’t resist running his hand through her hair, smiling a bit. She does pick the strangest things to be embarrassed about._

_“It’s fine. No one’s going to connect some eighties ballad to me, at least.”_

_“It’s just a nice memory is all,” she says, pressing her hand against his chest._

_“I know,” he tells her. “It is.” He leans in to kiss her, and they could go at each other again, but there is actual work to do, so they only linger awhile. After that, Rey calls her handler to keep him informed on her knowledge and get the particulars of the Bureau’s placement tomorrow while Kylo starts ferreting out every trace of them in his apartment._

_It’s a thankless job, draining as he watches all the life get sucked out of the place. They both take their time with last preparations, Rey fidgety and a little manic as she flits around. By the time everything’s done, pieces of them hidden or ready to run, it’s late into the afternoon, and all they have left is tonight._

 

_***_

 

“So...This is it, huh?” Rey stands by the sofa, feeling the fabric of the cushions, unable to really process that she will leave all of this behind in the morning. “The last night.”

“Yeah,” Ben says after a while and looks like he wants to say more, something uplifting but he closes his mouth again and glances away. Which is enough to choke Rey up.

“I’ll just….,” she mumbles and staggers backward from where she stands. “I’ll be...quick.” By the grace of her speed, she’s locks herself in the bathroom by the time the sob she can’t hold back breaks free. She tries to cry very quietly and to get actually ready for bed besides. She doesn’t want Ben to see, would actually prefer if he didn’t know at all. She’s been trying to be better about keeping some boundaries, some level to her feelings and hysterically crying in the bathroom because they’ll never gonna be together like this again is not the way to go.

 

Sure, she can’t help it but she can at least hide it from him somewhat. The last things she wants tonight is him thinking she’s failing or feeling weirded out. But it seems like she’s got no such luck, because of course, there’s a soft knock on the door now.

“Rey? Can I come in?” He sounds measured and calm but Rey is resolved not to lose it.

“All yours, I’m done. I’ll wait in bed, “ she says breezily, managing a smile and even if her voice is catching here and there, she can still do this. She hears him sigh as she passes him and he follows her back into the room.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says.

“Do what?” With her back to him as she climbs into bed, she feigns ignorance with a shaky, forced laugh. “I’m okay. I...will be.”

“Yeah, you really seem like it,” he huffs though not meanly sarcastic, more like he’s saying _you’re not fooling anyone_. But dammit, she should be. If not him then at least herself.

 

“I’m trying,” she says and her throat tightens, tears welling up not just in her eyes but in her voice, in that horrible way that people get wound up into crying that can only be helped by shutting up entirely. “I’m really…”

“This might be the last night I get to hold you and try to make you feel better,” he says urgently, climbing in with her and gathering her into his arms. “Don’t waste it, alright?”

“That’s what I’m trying,” she snaps, muffled by his skin, and fights out of his embrace. “I want to make the best of it - not cry the whole night.” The tears come on, she bites them away. “I want to…” And she moves a little rash, leans into him and kisses him even if she misses his mouth at first. When she finds it, she goes at him hard, pushing, looking to lead into more and getting so lost in it, she doesn’t notice the tears running down her cheek until he stops her, holding her head in a lock between his fingers.

 

“Rey, please…. Not like this. We’re both upset, it’s not gonna be good, I don’t want-” Ben struggles for a second, then gives up on words and opts to press his forehead against hers with a grimace. She wants to wiggle free of his hold to make him make love to her anyway but he’s stronger than her and keeps her at bay. So she stops, sinking down against his chest instead.

“I don’t want to sleep our last night away,” she says, broken and high-pitched.

“I _do_ ,” he says. “It’s not a waste, baby. I want to sleep beside you tonight. And it might not be the last time either, right? We have a plan, I can get away. But if - If things go wrong, and I end up in prison, they won’t - I won’t be allowed to sleep next to you anymore. I want that. One last time.”

“But not too long, okay?” She can understand where he’s coming from and she’ll give him that. “You can’t sleep in this time.”

“Okay,” he hums and pecks her on the mouth, just for the simple affection of it.

 

“Tell me a story,” she says when he stops kissing her, wanting to hear his voice, to remember it right. “The one with the monsters.”

“There was a boy named Max,” he starts, settling in against her, reciting from memory. When she was a kid, he always told her this story at bedtime, every single night. “Who was always getting into mischief, and his mother called him ‘Wild Thing’ and he said, ‘I’ll eat you up!’ So he was sent to bed without dinner.”

 

It’s a cute little story from a children’s book Rey loved as a kid. The little boy dreams himself away from his bedroom and his growling stomach and meets a group of monsters, of wild things and after they try to scare him, he rises up, puts his foot down and becomes the king of the wild things. It’s much like Rey, dreaming away all the shit she went through growing up, always lonely, always hungry, never belonging anywhere. Starting this assignment, she was facing the anger and animosity between her and Ben, just that her foot was firmly down from the beginning. And he started loving her for it. Loved her so much, he put her up on the throne. She’s the queen of the wild thing now, for all the good it does her.

 

But much like Max, who needs to return home eventually, her time with the wild things is coming to an end. Ben retells it haltingly, thinking while he speaks, pausing and stuttering here and there and she loves him so much, it rips at her chest.

“‘I need to go home,’ Max said, and the monsters were angry, pleading with him, reaching for him,” Ben mutters. “They held his hands and said: ‘Don’t-’”

“Don’t go,” Rey jumps in, talking over him and working her grip on him tighter. “I’ll eat you up, I love you so.’”

“But Max said, ‘No.’,” he says after a long moment, flat-voiced and tight.

“And dinner was still warm,” she whispers.

 

“Yeah.” He’s nodding against her head, hands ghosting over her back. “Through a day and in and out of weeks, and over a year, and dinner was still warm, waiting for him.”

Rey half-laughs into a little broken sob and kisses his chest. “I love you so much. I want you to know that. When you-” she wants to whisper the little speech she put together, with things she absolutely wants to say to him but he interrupts her.

“I do, I know. And I love you, too,” he says and kisses her, soft and lingering. “For as long as you’ll let me.” Another kiss, shorter this time. “Just stop trying to say goodbye to me, okay? Not yet.”

 

***

 

_As usual, Kylo is awake long after Rey, and he relishes the small moments of peace with her sleeping beside him, hoarding them inside himself like treasures. Rey fights for wakefulness so hard he knows she’s being as jealous with the time as he is, but his mild insomnia wins out and she’s soon sprawled across his chest, soft snores breathed out over his skin. It’s the best lullaby he’s ever had, and though Kylo’s eyes stay open for a while longer, he floats in a state of half-consciousness, fingers trailing over her skin, and he doesn’t realize when he slips off into sleep._

 

_It starts as slow as his descent into sleeping - dark and warm, cloaked in forests and shadows, cities bleeding into trees, and he’s walking alone, sitting in his room and speaking - maybe praying? Kylo fades into a room where he’s standing beside Hux, face upturned to a light in the darkness, and he must be trapped, it feels like he can’t breathe, can’t see right, but he knows the pair of them are beseeching, Ben trying to bargain while Hux argues for a victory._

_The scene slips from him, walking away from Hux and straight into the rain, then it’s snow, then it’s Finn, his face blurry and murderous. Kylo fights him, knows he must but not why, just the burning rage and need to destroy what’s in front of him. Finn lies bleeding on the ground as Rey appears. She’s crying and his heart breaks and he can’t move, can’t reach out to her can’t speak can’t breathe._

 

_“Monster,” Rey calls him, face messy with tears, fury in her eyes and none of the affection he knows. Ben’s heart stalls and the snow turns to rain, turns to a torrent so thick he has to wade through it to get to her. She’s in danger, creatures closing in, black and red and dripping violence and Ben throws himself at them. His arm goes through something’s back, hand dripping gore as he forces it through a chest, rips backward and lets the body fall. He’s panting, can’t find her, where is Rey?_

_He finds her on the ground again, crying again, he was trying to save her, he’ll kill all the things moving in the shadows, they can’t get her - can’t get him if he has Rey. He kneels and she retreats, flinching from the blood on his hands as he reaches for her. She’s talking, saying something about a mask, pet names sliding rough against accusations, and Ben blinks rain out of his eyes but he can’t see her. There’s mud and rain between them and when Ben looks, there is a field of death. Bodies litter the ground, children whose faces he can’t see, but he knows. He didn’t save them. He let them die. He killed them._

 

_Ben’s knees hit the floor, hard and shocking, and he has the half-sense of being awake, mind racing to keep up. His arms are shaking, but there’s no blood on them, his hardwood floors under his palms, and he falls into form automatically, counting. He hasn’t got more than two reps in before her voice comes back, questioning, and he shakes it off, stares at the floor and wills himself to slip back into reality, forcing his muscles to press up and down, body working so his mind won’t have the chance._

 

_Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

 

_The touch to his shoulder makes him flinch, locks his arms where he’s held with his nose an inch off the ground, and he pushes back up after a delayed second, Rey’s hand retreating from its light touch on his skin. She’s leaned over the bed to reach him, face creased with sleep and concern, and Ben tells himself she’s real. She’s been sleeping in his bed for weeks now. She’s not crying._

_“Ben, babe, what’s wrong?” Rey asks softly, affection in her eyes along with hesitance._

_“Shit.” He drops, pulling his elbows up to support him and resting his forehead on his fists in front of him. Eyes closed, he sorts through the jumble of his dream, classifies it as just that, a dream, and recites the facts in his head. Rey is here. Tomorrow they are moving to take out Hux. It’s late at night. “It’s nothing- Just a dream.”_

 

_“Come back to bed, come here.” Rey’s fingertips brush over the back of his head, through his sweaty hair and down over the arch of his neck, and Ben shudders at the gentle sensation. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”_

_“I’m not,” he snaps, defensive. He’s_ not _, he’s stronger than that, he can_ deal _with this. Kylo  shakes his head, stands, wipes his clammy palms across his pajama pants, and soaks in the regret that comes with seeing Rey’s face after he’s snapped at her. “Sorry, I’m…. Sorry.”_

 

_Rey flinches back a little as he climbs back into the bed, and something in his chest breaks wide open, the echo of her voice screaming at him. ‘You’re a monster.’ That was it._

_“Ben…” Rey’s voice trails off softly, like there’s a question in it, like she doesn’t know what to do with him._

_Kylo tucks his hands between his arms and chest, folding into himself, and doesn’t press into her space. “It was a dream, I don’t…” Know what to do with you. You were so angry. Why did she hate him so much? What did he_ do _? “I don’t usually talk about it.”_

_She sits up at that, so Rey is above him, Kylo curled into himself and peering up at her. “Do you want to?” she asks carefully._

 

_“I don’t know,” he says, the honest answer tumbling out of him. “It was… I don’t know, should I?” He’s never told anyone about his dreams, never wanted to and never had anyone to tell, but he’s shared so many things with her. Kylo isn’t sure he could talk about it properly. It’s already a mash of images and sounds, all melting into each other, and the inescapable feeling of choking, suffocating, afraid throughout the nightmare and helpless to stop it._

_“If you think it helps.” Rey scootches closer to him, shuffling under the blankets so her hip is a few scant inches from him. “I wanna help. Whatever I can do.”_

_“It was. Everyone, they all died.” Kylo stares at the space where her hip sits, not really seeing her. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything.” His hands clench into fists against his ribs, and he can feel his own heartbeat, kicked up and restless, body waiting for the punishment he usually uses to force himself back into unconsciousness._

 

_Rey moves closer, hand hovering over his temple for a moment before dropping to smooth over his hair, pushing it away from his face. “No one’s dead. We’ll save ‘em, okay? Nobody’s dying.” Her voice has this quality, one he hasn’t heard before, though she’s wavered near it once or twice. It’s like a funhouse mirror image of them as children, when he’d lulled her back to sleep. There’s an even fuzzier memory of his mother, but all he can focus on is the more recent image of Rey’s face, so disappointed, furious with him and devoid of any faith that his hands were meant for anything but blood._

_He reaches out blindly anyway, just barely touching his index finger at the edge of her palm. “A lot of people are dead. I’m good at - that.”_

 

_“Don’t do that, that’s not who you are anymore.” Rey takes his hand, turning her palm into his touch until she can tangle her fingers with his and bring his hand up to her mouth. Her lips press lightly to his knuckles and Ben fights the urge to pull them back. “Ben, please, look at me.”_

_His eyes swing up from his unseeing stare somewhere in the vicinity of Rey’s knee. He doesn’t know if he should move, so he doesn’t, just gazes up at her sideways and blurts out more, like he can’t help himself. “You were crying.”_

_“Yeah,” Rey says, a little self-deprecating, nodding. “I’m the little idiot who keeps doing that.”_

_He should be annoyed that she’s calling herself an idiot, that she doesn’t get what he’s saying. He tries to be angry, tries to call on the frustration that is so normal, that pushes him past thinking. He should be halfway to exhausting himself by now, and the lack of action is hitting like a comedown from an adrenaline rush, making his limbs watery and his grip on what he’s talking about loose and fluid._

 

_“I’m sorry I make you cry so much.” It’s too honest, and Ben swallows hard like he could force the admission back down his throat. He can’t seem to stop making her cry, it doesn’t matter what he tries._

_“No,” Rey says, bending low to kiss his forehead. “Even so, I’d do it all over again.” Kylo breathes into the silence for a moment, forgets to breathe in the next, and then Rey nudges him slightly. “Come on, what do you need, baby?”_

_“I can’t -” Ben shakes his head. “What are we doing? How do you know I won’t fuck it up?”_

_Rey lowers herself to her elbow so she’s level with him. He searches her face and finds it open, both pained and trusting, as she strokes the side of his face. “Shh, you won’t. We’re prepared, we’re ready. Everything will be fine.”_

 

_He wants to believe her, so badly he’s desperate for it, but his dream is still crawling down his spine. Breathing heavy and mechanical in the back of his mind, bleeding into the mud and rain. Kylo tips forward to kiss her, to make sure she’ll accept it, that she’s real and he wasn’t dreaming up the ‘I love you’s and the way she fits into his house and heart._

_“What if something happens to you?” he asks, hushed. They have a system, yes, a plan, to get him out, but what if she doesn’t. What if he drives for hours to safety, never knowing Rey is bleeding onto New York’s sidewalks? What if as he’s requesting what’s become their song, Rey is facing charges that aren’t hers, telling lies they see through and walking back to an apartment where something terrible is waiting for her._

 

_“I’ll be okay,” she reassures him, completely inadequately. “I’m here, baby, I’m here.”_

_Kylo stays still as she rubs her thumb across his cheek, watches her in the orange-cast darkness. Slowly, almost despite himself, he crosses the short distance between them and puts his hand around the side of her neck, fingers wrapping around the back of it and drawing himself to her. It’s paranoia, the lingering traces of a nightmare, and everything will be okay, but he can almost see her breaking apart in myriad ways, his failure played out over the backs of his eyelids._

_“Do you want something to drink?” Rey asks, interrupting his self-destructive train of thought. “Tea? Chocolate milk? Water?” It sounds like she’s grasping at straws, trying to think of a list somewhere that tells how to deal with men who wake up gasping and shaking and snap at you and are too afraid not to touch you to see if you’re real. Kylo doubts such a list exists._

 

_“I normally just...go back to sleep,” he says pathetically. He doesn’t really calm down after these kind of dreams. He just pushes further until he hits a wall of exhaustion too strong to dream through. He doubts Rey wants to spend her last night here watching him run circles around his apartment in an effort to turn off his brain._

_“Do you want to try and sleep again? Or I could -” Ben watches Rey mentally search for another way to comfort him and loves her so fiercely it burns in his chest, threatening to crawl upward and make his eyes water. “- hold you? For a while? That always helps me.”_

_He hums an agreement, rolling into her as soon as she opens her arms. Rey puts him on the flat place between her shoulder and chest, where he can see her breasts rise and fall with each breath. They’re quiet for a while, but Kylo can still feel the restlessness under his skin, knows that he’ll dream again if he sleeps and dreading it. “My brain’s too awake.”_

 

_“I’m right here, until you’re ready,” she says, pushing her lips against his hairline, stroking her hand down his back as far as she can reach. “Or if you want something else.”_

_Kylo holds onto her like a lifeline, pressing back into her touch like a belated apology for his behavior earlier, a confused plea for more. “I don’t- ...know what I want.”_

_“Okay,” Rey accepts easily, kissing his forehead again. “I had a nice dream. Of the house and the leaves. Yellow and orange. And the fireplace. I was laughing.”_

_“That’s good. That’s - ” Kylo drifts on her voice, lets himself thinking about his cabin in Massachusetts and consciously tries to release the tension in his shoulders, sighing. “That’s good.” Rey starts petting through his hair, dragging her blunt nails over his scalp, and Kylo can’t help the soft moans it draws from him. His nerves feel on edge, over-sensitive and drowsy at once._

 

_“Do you want me to make love to you?” Rey asks carefully. It might be a remnant of her earlier desire, might be an attempt at a different sort of comfort, but Kylo doesn’t much care. He’s always beaten his mind into shape with physical exertion, and he’s more than willing to take the offer if it’s genuine._

_“Maybe,” he says, pushing up to look down at her for a long moment. Her hand falls from his hair, and in the shifting darkness, Kylo can make out the earnest want on her face. “Yeah, I - Yes.”_

_Rey smiles, relieved, and he lets her tip him over with a shove of her own body, climbing onto his hips right after. She leans down to kiss him thoroughly, her own hips grinding slowly against him like she wants to build him up gently. “Tell me what you need.”_

 

_“I don’t want to think,” he says, certain, pulling her down faster and harder. “I need you to wear me out.” Rey accepts that so easily, he almost wonders if she was waiting for it, if she knew without having to ask. She attacks their clothes like they’ve personally offended her, jacking him rough and quick before sitting astride his hips and sinking down onto him a little too fast, her breath punching out of her. She rides him, holding his hands pressed into the sheets until he’s squirming under her and then lets him loop his hands under her knees and tip her backward._

_Ben fucks her like they’re dying, paying no mind to how his breath gets harsh in his chest and sweat drips down his spine. He’s brutal, almost enough that he’d feel bad except for how Rey chases after him, holding him tighter when his hands bruise her thighs and moaning for him, letting him move her where he wants, egging him on. He comes with Rey hissing in his ear, what passes for dirty talk for her, telling him she loves it, and he collapses on top of her, panting._

 

_“How long do you need?” Rey mutters after he’s caught his breath somewhat. The windows are already starting to lighten. “I’m not done yet.”_

_“I’m good,” Kylo pants into her collarbone, unwilling to move or pull out yet. He runs his hand down her side, over her ribs and waist and under her thigh. “Tell me what to do.”_

_“Just be here. I’m not ready.” Rey grabs onto his hair, and Kylo drags his mouth across her throat. “I hate that the damn, fucking sun is rising. Fuck.”_

_Kylo bites down on his body’s reaction to her expletives and how she tightens up with how vehement her little speech was. “It’s false dawn, we’ve got time.” He’s lying and he knows it, but she asked him to be here, and his mind is finally starting to quiet, so he moves up to kiss her, using the hand under her thigh to shift her legs up around his waist. He’s getting hard still inside her, and it’s instinct to press close._

 

_“Wait.” Rey shuffles and nudges at him until they’re sitting up with him resting against the headboard. Rey perches on her shins, lowering herself with no ceremony and gasping a little as she starts up a slow rhythm. “Tell me...what you thought when you saw me again. A year ago.”_

_“I thought…” His answer is halting, distracted by the physical action as well as struggling to put to words what seeing her had been like. “You were so grown up, so much better than me. I thought you’d hate me. I thought you were beautiful and I’d lost you. And then you -” Wonder of wonders. “You didn’t. You didn’t hate me.”_

_“Yeah,” Rey breathes, and he doesn’t know if it’s a response to what he’s said or the movement of their bodies together. “I’d forgotten what you looked like. I was so young when you...oh...when you left, I only had a couple of, fuck, a couple of pictures. I was so happy to just see you.”_

 

 _“God, I wanted you so bad.” It had been a feral, unexpected thing then, untempered by knowing Rey as the woman she’d grown into. The memory of it is visceral even now, how he’d wanted to show her everything, the unbidden, dirty fantasies of Rey being a virgin, having her for the first time, and the horrified guilt that had followed. She was always so much, and now she’s_ more _, infinitely, and Kylo’s hands dig into her hips, bracing his feet against the bed so he can rock up into her as he pulls her down. “Thought it was so fucked up, but - God. I was looking for a_ kid _, and I found this...this_ woman _.”_

_Rey yelps as he gives a particularly hard thrust, hand braced on his shoulder. “Yeah, yes.” She grabs at his hair, his face, hands wandering as she follows his pace. “If we could...stay here, don’t leave, would...uh, Ben.” It’s a futile effort to speak, with how Rey can barely hold in her little whimpers. “If you could do over…”_

 

_Kylo has no interest in what ifs, so he pulls her to him instead, kissing her and fucking up into her like a man on a mission. They twist, and Rey tells him she loves him as her back hits the sheets, nails digging into his arms. Kylo hisses, teeth grit against that small, stinging pain and the way it only makes him drive into her harder._

_“Love you,” he gasps against her shoulder, saying her name like a god damn prayer. They’re at odds, Rey trying to hold off while Kylo chases that peak for both of them, using his familiarity with her body like a cheat, stealing her orgasm for himself. He licks over the spot where he can see her struggling to swallow and breathe as she squeezes like a vice around him, and he follows her over the edge quickly._

 

_“No,” Rey mutters as soon as she has breath. “Fuck.” Kylo nuzzles against her neck, humming a questioning noise as he mouths at her pulse point, still beating rapidly under his tongue. “It’s over.”_

_“Mm, it’s not.” While Rey seems to rise with the sun, her awareness returning, Kylo has finally managed to get his own thoughts to quiet, and he knows he’s slurring when he speaks. It’s due in equal parts to the hour and the sex. “S’never over. Not with us.”_

_“You don’t know that,” Rey says, rearranging his body over her like a groggy blanket. “Please run, Ben. You can leave in an hour or two, be at your safe house before the whole thing even happens.”_

 

_“No.” On a shallow level, it’s absolutely absurd that she thinks he’s driving anywhere in the next hour or two, exhausted as he is, but he simply cannot, will not leave and let her do this alone. There’s only so much he can do to set things right, and Ben won’t take the coward’s way out, even if it’s easier, even if it’s what Rey wants. There’s too much that can go wrong if he turns a blind eye and lets life work itself out. He’s let things just happen so far, just survived and accepted the casualties, but he can’t live in a world of bodies forever. He’ll drown. “I can’t. Rey, please don’t ask me again.”_

_Rey kisses his cheek, and though he can’t see her face, Ben can feel her body slump with acceptance. “Is there anything I can do or say to make you change your mind?”_

_“No. I’m seeing this through,” he says, sleepy but certain. “I have to do this.”_

 

_Somewhere above his head, Rey nods, scooting down after to find his mouth and kiss him properly. “There’s just so many things...I haven’t said. So many things we haven’t done. So much we still need to do...that we might never get to.”_

_“We got so much though,” Kylo mutters, eyes hardly open. He touches her face, a little wondering, and his nightmare shuffles with his reality, that for all the fear and struggle, he has this, has Rey who loves him and lets him love her. It’s strength and courage, and maybe not peace, but something close enough. “This is more than I ever thought I’d have.”_

_“It’s not enough for me.” If he were awake enough, Ben might read an insult in that, but he smiles lopsided instead. She will never be satisfied. “Just hold me. And don’t let go until you absolutely have to.”_

 

_He obeys, twining his body around hers and murmuring nonsense at her until he falls asleep. He can’t be sure if Rey sleeps at all, but he hopes she does. They have a big day ahead, and even with the mess of tonight, they have to be on top of their game come morning._

 

***

 

Hours later, Rey has reluctantly packed all her things into the bag she arrived with. It sits on the kitchen counter, ready to be grabbed when the team of investigators is sure to swarm the place at the end of the day. Ben tossed the sheets they slept on the last couple of nights after breakfast, because should anyone actually check there for...anything, they’d find so much of both of them in those sheets, it would lead to a lot of uncomfortable questions - or even worse, allegations against Ben she never wants to hear in her life. It’s endlessly weird to have removed all her traces from the apartment, it’s wrong and hopeless and the place looks dead with their stuff missing from it, even more so in the harsh midday-light.

 

“I’m gonna miss this place,” she says, giving the studio a once-over glance.

Ben looks like the place is suddenly alien to him too. “I think all the good parts of it are gonna be gone after today anyway.” She can tell he is trying for nonchalance but he’s not quite getting there. This was his home and he won’t be able to come back to it again. She is doing that to him, she realizes, she’s uprooting him for a life on the run. It feels sour, even if it’s for the best reasons. There’s no other way but that only makes it marginally better.

 

“Do I get to say goodbye now?” She asks him with a sinking stomach. She doesn’t want to, never wants to, but now there’s still time and she has things still to say.

“I...guess you...might as well,” he replies and seems slightly unwilling to touch her, as if she could dissipate under his hands even now. Still, he really can’t resist, holding onto her in a weird echo of the awkward embrace one might get saying goodnight on a first date with his hands flitting to her face, her shoulder, her hip and never quite settling. It’s okay, she has a speech. By the end of it, he’ll touch her.

 

“I love you so much and I’m so proud of you,” she begins and takes his hands, steadying him as well as herself. “When you crashed back into my life like a fucking freight train, I wanted to straight up murder you but it turns out you made...everything so wonderful. You made me... _feel_ wonderful and loved and at home, like it’s a reality. I know the world sees you as this one thing...the criminal, that persona, but I see _you_ and you’ve...you’ve made me freer and gave me roots at the same time. And you’ll never know how thankful I am for that. How much I love you.”

 

He bends low to kiss her after a breathless moment of just processing what she said. It looks like it’s only half-computing. “I only know _how_ to love because of you,” he mutters eventually. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Rey. You’re- The way you see me, that’s what I want to be. You make me better, make me remember what it’s like to be _good_. So thank you, for showing me how to be that person, instead of just Kylo Ren. It’s- It means the world, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be more for you.”

 

“No, you’re everything,” she tells him softly, hugs him, and finds that she fits like this, right in the dip of his neck when she gets on her tiptoes like that. It takes a while before she can let go of him but when she tries to, he doesn’t let her.

“One more second,” he winces, holding her tighter. He puts his face in her hair, inhaling as if he could breathe her in, then, too soon yet, lets his arms loosen so she can step out. “Okay.”

“We’re never gonna be ready, are we?” She looks up at him, forcing each step.

“Of course not,” he laughs completely free of humor and he doesn’t say anything for a while. Only when his eyes light up with something he must’ve nearly forgotten, does he open his mouth again. “Hey, there’s, uh, this thing. If I can’t get away, there’s one thing I need you to keep out of evidence, just...get it out of the way.”

“Sure, okay, what is it?” In horrible truth, Rey would hide body parts for him at this point but he doesn’t necessarily need to know that.

“It’s in my glove compartment, it’s- I think it’s an old altoids tin or something, this little box,” he says and her heart shrivels down to the size of a pea. “It’s dumb, but I don’t want the feds to have it.”

“Of course, I got it,” she nods quickly.

“It’s not anything illegal,” he looks like her non-surprise or lack of prying is because she wants deniability rather than the fact that she knows the box and its contents like a physical weight. “It’s just...personal.”

 

“I know. I…,” she begins, deciding that he should know she knows. That she was being sneaky and intrusive and that she snooped around in his most private belongings before they became what they are and that she’s sorry. “I found it. Or...I went looking. For something. And found the box. The first morning I was here actually. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone through your stuff. But I just wanted to...understand. That’s not an excuse, I know. I’m sorry. It was wrong.” She only sees him frown, sincere hurt on his face before she has to look away.

“You went through-” At first his voice is almost raised but he quickly catches himself, shaking his body like he’s shaking away his chagrin. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. I would’ve showed you some time anyway, and I know you didn’t… You had no reason to trust me then. It’s okay. Just...you know why I don’t want them to have it.”

 

“No one will but me, ever,” she promises sheepishly, daring to look up at him again. “I really am sorry, I had no right.” She does feel horrible. Honestly, she has felt horrible since she’d pried open the lid from that goddamn box the first time. The worst thing is that she’d probably do it again, because that box, private and depressing as it is, helped her understand him, have compassion for him, see him as a person again, remember that he was once just her Ben and maybe that did make a difference along the way.

 

“Maybe you don’t want to now but...can I,” she starts, tentatively taking a step toward him again. “Can I ask for that...last kiss...anyway?”

“Course you can,” he’s saying that already pressed against her lips. “I love you. That’s not going to change because you’re a nosy little snoop with no regard for privacy.”

She wants to say something stupid back at him but he doesn’t give her the chance. Instead he dips her backward, hands close and pulling but still wandering and mouth wedging her own open with urgency. He’s kissing her like they’re both gonna die in a minute. Like that couple in the volcano movie, standing in front of the cataclysmic ash cloud coming to turn them into statues for all eternity. She kisses him back like that too. Until reality blurs, her body burns and she’s about ready to take her clothes off once again but he stops her wandering arms, chuckling or maybe whimpering, she can’t tell.

“Baby, there’s no more time,” he whispers, like it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says and sinks back to her whole feet, feeling deprived not just of one last desperate screw but also, horribly, of the rest of her life with him.

 

“I’ll see you on the other side. If anything goes south, you run, okay?” She takes his hand. “If they should...get to you, I’ll...figure something out, we’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he nods, squeezing her fingers intently. “Don’t do anything stupid, alright?” Another squeeze and a pause and it seems a bit harder to get the words out now. “I need you just as badly.”

Slowly, Rey nods, unwilling to promise not to do anything stupid but doing it anyway and it’s nice to hear that he’s as scared as she is, sometimes she forgets that in face of his calm. “Okay, let’s go or we never will,” she says. Ben nods. And they leave the rest behind.

 

The drive over to the nondescript office building in east Newark is tense, Rey refusing to remove her hand from Ben’s thigh, grasping for every last bit of contact and she loses herself a bit fantasizing that this is just another assignment, that they’re gonna get home together at the end of the day, after a job well done. She’d trail her hand up higher on his leg, trying how far she can push him until he tells her to stop so he can focus on the road. But they’re not coming home again and so she does nothing, not in the mood for once. Passing brick buildings and flurries of people who have no idea what tragedy is unfolding in that flashy sports car he drives, she thinks briefly that maybe if would be better if she distracted him enough to run them off some bridge. But that’s too much Romeo and Juliet for her, so she stops entertaining the thought. Plus it’s not even remotely an option. They have a job to do and she’s rather fond of being alive. It’s gonna be a little less great living without him but she’ll make it work.

 

Wherever he’ll settle, she’ll find an inconspicuous reason to go there, every vacation she gets; spend a week or two every half year with him. It’s true it’s not the life she envisioned for herself but it’s the life she gets. And even if he’s not sold on it, she might keep trying to convince him to start a family with her one day, maybe when she’s thirty and set well enough to raise a kid mostly on her own. It’s not exactly practical but she wants it. Maybe he’ll come around to the idea one day and let her have it. She will see.

 

Granted he manages to get away today. She doesn’t even want to think about what happens if he doesn’t. If he’s taken in or worse shot by someone as trigger-happy as Greta. Her fingers dig deeper into his pants as her brain flashes her unbidden images, of his body riddled with bullets, the light leaving his eyes, collapsing to the ground and herself not even able to mourn him because no one can know that he’s her whole world.

“Are you okay?” he asks her, eyes trained on the road and he looks like he knows the answer.

“No,” she says needlessly. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

“Just for a little while. We’re gonna make it, you and me,” he tells her, too confident to contradict, and really, what more is there to say anyway?

 

***

_Hux is in fine form when they arrive, doling out orders with none of his more slimy demeanor, all business instead. Something must have gone amiss for him to be this sharp, and it’s confirmed when he snaps that their intended driver had an ‘accident’ last night landing him in the hospital. Kylo is relegated to taking his place, his penchant for driving himself and paying the speed limit no mind surely a factor. Rey is told she’ll be helping transfer the cargo into the van, remaining behind with Phasma once the switch has been made, so they can tail him afterward once the first drivers have been paid._

_Hux himself will be meeting them at the terminal, going ahead to make sure things are running smoothly with security there. “No more accidents,” he says, gaze sliding over Kylo in a decidedly unnerving way. It puts him on his toes, face locking down to hide his nerves behind an impassive mask. It stays in place as Hux gets into a town car, not needing to snap at the driver for him to step on it anyway._

 

_If they didn’t already know what exactly the ‘cargo’ is, it might sound like Hux is planning on moving some expensive art or something from the detached descriptions. The kids are going to be dropped off at the office building under the guise of it being just that - an office, and Kylo suspects Hux has the place listed as some sort of center for troubled youth or even a branch of an adoption firm. It’s perfect, all neat and tidy, and if he didn’t know Rey has the FBI on standby waiting for them at the docks, he’d think Hux was going to pull it off without a hitch, hospitalized driver or no._

 

_They don’t have much time to talk things through, what with the people around, so Kylo makes a snap decision and sends a text instead. It’s only an address, North Avenue in the shipping district, just before it crosses the turnpike. There’s at least a couple warehouses there that will work to keep the kids out of the way until the feds descend and they can be put somewhere safer. Rey ought to be able to piece together his intentions from the address alone, or at least he has to hope so, because it's only a few minutes later that two cars pull up outside of the building, Rey turns to meet his eye for a moment, naked fear on her face before she schools it, and quite suddenly, it’s the beginning of the end._


	11. CHAPTER ELEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is entirely from Kylo's POV, all written by me, Rhythm, and next week you will be treated to the solo (I'm funny) stylings of EllieCarina. You lucky things!
> 
> If anyone cares to listen, I made a Kylo-specific playlist that follows the fic up to this chapter: http://8tracks.com/leavekyloalone/elastic-heart-kylo-ren
> 
> Without further ado...

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: [Everything You Say Can and Will Be Held Against You (So Only Say My Name)]**

 

_ He shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve packed eleven kids into two cars - the last thing Hux and the First Order are concerned about is seatbelt safety - but watching the small bodies pile out rankles a bit. None of them are older than thirteen, if he had to guess. Ben’s stomach roils and he almost can’t meet Rey’s eye for fear of what he’ll find there. Instead he forces himself to watch the group of children standing with vaguely confused looks on their faces, some of them shivering a bit in the chilly autumn air. He has the absurd urge to offer a jacket, so he shoves his hands deep into his own pockets instead, deliberately not thinking about it. God willing, a little chill and maybe some creative driving is all they’ll have to suffer through. It’s infinitely preferable to what would have happened to them if he hadn’t reached out to Rey. _

 

_ If the visual proof is enough to disgust him, he can’t imagine what it’s doing to her. Rey is and always will be a better person than him, and Ben almost wants to tell her to leave it to him. Let him do the dirty work of moving the kids, though he knows they aren’t putting any one of them on a ship. Even knowing the FBI will have rescued a gaggle of foster kids by the end of the day, it feels wrong to make Rey take part in this one crime that neither of them can stomach, that Kylo himself can’t quite manage to compartmentalize. Still, Phasma is handling the drivers, which leaves him and Rey to herd the group of kids into the back of the van. That certainly isn’t outfitted to handle passengers either. _

_ He pauses, thinking about that, and becomes aware of the fact he hasn’t thought about any of this in terms of merchandise or supply or any of the neat, detached phrases he’d used to make it not so real. They’re children, standing in a huddle outside a gray office building, messy hair and hand-me-down clothes, and there’s nothing about them that could be classified under terms like ‘cargo’. Belatedly, he feels a bit more awful for so long ago when Rey had yelled at him for dissociating the two ideas in some shitty motel. The twist of ageless disgust, old guilt, and new hope coils and settles in his stomach, pressing Ben into action and sharpening his focus. They have to go, to get the job done, he reminds himself, opening the van doors. _

 

_ He and Rey hold a silent conversation the whole time, Kylo lifting kids up into the van with all the gentleness he can manage without drawing suspicion. Rey’s hands are shaking on the shoulders of a little girl, maybe nine years old, and he can almost feel her desire to bolt - just grab as many kids as she can manage to run, and it breaks his heart to give her a warning glare. If she runs, it’s all going to fall apart. The feds won’t have their red-handed culprit, Hux will likely slip through their fingers, and there will be a new batch of children shipped out that they can do nothing to protect. Rey gives him an almost imperceptible nod and hands the girl off to him, her fingers lingering. The kid shoots her a nervous look, flinching away from the lingering touch and Rey swallows hard. She and Ben both know that response too well. Most of the kids are quiet, confused but cowed, and he can guess well enough that they’ve been told there will be consequences if they don’t cooperate. He can’t imagine they have any idea what their intended destination is and he rather they never find out. _

 

_ Most of the kids look healthy if not happy. Not a one is dangerously underfed or dressed in worse than the usual clothes. There are even one or two boys who look excited by the obviously strange business going on around them, like it’s an adventure. Kylo wonders bleakly what story they were told at the home to get them in the cars, but there’s nothing he’d rather dwell on less, frankly, so he shuts the topic in his mind as he shuts the back of the van. _

_ Phasma and Rey are standing with the other drivers as he makes his way around the van to the driver’s side door, and Kylo leans in for a brief moment. “I’ll drop and run,” he mutters into Rey’s ear, hiding the move as a small moment of affection. Phasma, in her boundless tact, turns slightly away at it, focusing on the two other men. Rey gives him a short nod, and that’s the best they’ll get. _

 

_ He wants to take this moment to tell her goodbye, like their goodbyes in the apartment hadn’t been enough. He doesn’t say anything, but he does lean down to kiss her, hard and fast, stealing Rey’s breath momentarily. He can’t possibly press everything he means into it, but he tries to say it with his mouth on hers anyway. _ No matter what happens, I love you _.  _ Please make it out of this alright _. There’s nothing left for Kylo once this is over if he loses her. This existence is everything he had, and he’s throwing away his entire life - ten years of it - to make things right by her and by the things she believes in. That she’s managed to remind him are what he wants to believe in too. _

 

_ Some of it must get through, going by the wondering look on Rey’s face when he pulls back, and he’s caught in her gaze for a heartbeat. Then his eyes swing up to find Phasma giving him a more than speculative look. He retreats before he can interpret it, and that might cement the suspicion he can see growing in Phasma’s eyes, but if he drives off right now, it’ll be too quick for her to do anything about it. They stand in the rearview mirror as he starts the van, Rey’s back to him, ramrod straight, while Phasma shoots a glance over her shoulder as the engine turns over. There’s a quiet chorus of whispers from the back of the van when he pulls away from the building, and Kylo relegates it to the back of his mind as he mentally maps the route to the shipping district. _

 

_ If they’ve timed it right, Hux should be arriving to a welcoming party of federal agents. The original plan - to have the children present as the most damning evidence is no longer feasible for a multitude of reasons. Rey will likely never forgive him if Ben drives straight into the fray with no thought to whether or not he gets caught in the crossfire. There’s also a higher chance that something will go wrong - Kylo is aware he’s a target as much as any other First Order member, and he can’t trust any of the agents not to hit an innocent while trying to get him, especially after Rey’s experience with trigger-happy agents taking shots at him. They’re not ending this on a note of Rey shooting anyone, or either of them having to shield a child from a bullet. _

_ He’s hardly considered Snoke’s involvement, partially because he still shies away from the thought of betraying the man, but there’s a very real chance Hux will turn on Snoke when he’s caught out, and Ben has no idea how that will play out for him. Ideally, the entire organization will be crippled enough that he can slip away without too much trouble. He doesn’t expect no trouble at all, because while Ben may be relearning optimism, he’s not an idiot. Snoke will come for him, arrested or under suspicion or otherwise. Starting today, his life will be lived on the run. _

 

_ He’s lost in his own mind enough that Kylo spends the first few minutes in dead silence, until one of the braver kids sticks her head up near his shoulder, her high voice cutting through his whirring thoughts. _

_ “Can I go pee?” she asks, and it’s such an innocent, innocuous question that Ben almost laughs, entirely inappropriately for the situation. _

_ “Sorry,” he says, biting down on the hysterical urge, “No bathroom breaks for a little bit.” They’re only a few minutes out from the turnoff to the port, and he’s yet to see Rey and Phasma in his rearview mirror. There’s little chance that he has much time to work with anyway, given that Hux is already at the docks, so as much as Ben would like to keep a low profile until he has the kids safely stowed away, he probably ought to step on it. _

 

_ “I need you to sit down,” he calls over his shoulder, getting an immediate response of the girl shuffling back. “Things might get kind of bumpy, so I want the bigger kids to hold on to the smaller ones, okay?” There’s noises like movement, and Kylo chances a glance back - there are more older kids than younger, but the three youngest are being held close to the walls of the van in the grasp of one dark-haired boy and a blonde girl whose death grip on the pair she’s managing says she’s picked up that things are seriously wrong. That’s one thing he can count on with foster kids at least, he muses grimly. After long enough in the system, they can smell trouble a mile away.  _

 

_ Ben has to wonder if he would have been smart enough to figure it out at their age. He’d been shuffled around enough that moving was commonplace until he started making an effort once he had Rey to take care of. But for the grace of chance, any one of these kids could have been them. Rey, sweet and desperate for a family as she had been before he’d left, could have wound up with much worse than pageants and disappointing foster parents. Every kid in the back of the van is somewhere between his age and hers when he’d said goodbye for the first time. He would never have known, he realizes in a breathless moment. Rey could have disappeared under the paperwork for a happy home and been halfway around the world, dead-eyed and forgotten, and Kylo would never have had any idea until it was much too late. _

_ His grip on the wheel tightens and Ben swallows hard against useless bile rising in his throat. That didn’t happen. It didn’t, and it won’t to these kids, and thanks to Rey, Hux won’t be able to try to sell off any more of them. Vaughn will certainly be arrested. Hell, a good portion of the New York foster care system might fall under enquiry. It’s a good thing they’re doing, and he ought to focus on that instead of getting lost in the sickening what ifs that never came to pass anyway. _

 

_ There’s not much traffic in this area, mostly trucks toddling from one warehouse to another to a point of delivery. Kylo speeds up incrementally, and he holds his breath passing the turnoff, like something drastic will happen. He has the vague idea of dramatic car chases though he’s been in this business long enough to know it rarely goes down like that. He lets out a heavy breath when the sign for Port Elizabeth is in his rearview, and then jolts as he sees a black car come tearing out onto the street. He jerks the wheel in reaction, knocking the kids around in the back a bit and Kylo curses under his breath. _

 

_ The car goes racing away from him, driving north with a police vehicle hot on its tail, but he doesn’t stop to think about keeping a low profile for the moment. He shouts a warning to hold on to the kids and bids the speed limit farewell. The address he’d given Rey isn’t far, only a few extra minutes down the road, and he’d like to unload the kids and get himself well away as soon as humanly possible if the bust is already going down. Traffic is slow enough to weave in and out of without risking some horrific accident, so he does, shouting back an apology when a small chorus of worried noises goes up behind him. _

_ Ben proceeds to ignore the symphony of horns honking and bypass the small cluster of storefronts until they give way to streets uniformly occupied by storage space and warehouses. The one he’s picked is nondescript, perfect for hiding in plain sight, and Ben takes the turn a little too sharply, but when he turns to look in the back none of the kids look battered, and only the oldest blonde girl is glaring at him for his driving. _

 

_ “Everybody out,” Kylo orders, sort of regretting it when all eyes drop in deference. But his authority carries, and when he circles to open the back of the van, the children all pile out without a fuss. And then he has a line of eleven kids staring at the ground at his feet and sort of no idea what to do with them besides duck and run. They’re distant enough that he can’t hear sirens, but the phantom of them is in Ben’s head, making him more nervous than he thought he’d be. _

_ “Okay, listen up,” he starts, trying to soften his tone. “I have a friend who’s coming to pick you guys up, but I need you to follow instructions.” The smaller kids nod along, but Ben can see the older ones who have no reason to trust him aren’t sold on it. “She’s much nicer than me, I promise. But she’d gonna have police with her, and they might think there are some bad guys in the building, so -” _

 

_ “We’re not stupid,” one boy pipes up, glowering at him, and Kylo’s short temper runs out faster than intended. _

_ “Fine,” he snaps, deliberately ignoring how at least a couple of the kids flinch. “I need to get out of here and the FBI are going to be showing up, and I don’t want any of you getting shot at, so we’re gonna go into this building and you’re all going to sit in a circle and wait until my friend, the FBI agent, shows up. That work for you?” _

 

_ The boy who’d spoken up has his shoulders hunched up, glaring hard at the sidewalk. Glancing over the kids, Ben can see they all have their backs up and of course it wasn’t a great idea to lose his temper with some kid. This is all going to go horribly wrong because he can’t keep his head on straight. _

_ “Look,” he says in what he hopes is both a reasonable and urgent tone of voice, “I’m trying to keep you guys safe, alright? Those people before were...not. I just need you to listen to me, and you can hate me all you want, but just- Listen for ten minutes.” _

 

_ The blonde girl must be somewhat in charge, because when she steps up, the others follow. Ben doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief, but it’s a near thing. Herding the kids inside is a distraction, he could already be driving away, but something doesn’t sit right with him to leave a group of preteens standing on the sidewalk in the shipping district by themselves. Inside has the illusion of safety, and Ben knows it’s an illusion, but it’s something. The boy who spoke up is the last one in, and Kylo has to physically wave him over before he’s willing to move. He follows the boy inside and they’ve barely gone more than a yard, the kid hanging behind him, before there’s a shout. _

 

_ “Traitor!” _

_ He doesn’t have to look to know it’s Hux, sounding furious and too close, and his stomach drops. How the fuck did Hux find him here? How did he get away from the feds? Ben thinks through a thousand scenarios in a heartbeat, but none of them truly matter. There’s no time to worry about the particulars of  _ how _ with ten pairs of eyes staring at him bewildered. They’re smart, flinching away from Hux’s enraged yell already, but Ben shouts, “Go!” anyway, thrusting a hand toward the children gathered in the center of the room like he could push them further away with a thought.  _

 

_ “Run, get out!” He spins to collect the last boy and finds the kid held in Hux’s grip, one hand clamped tight around the boy’s arm while the other is occupied pointing a gun at Ben’s head. The sounds of running feet are distant comfort as he freezes where he stands. He could maybe go for his own weapon, drop and make Hux miss so that he has a chance of shooting the bastard himself, but the moment Ben’s hand twitches toward his belt, Hux swings the kid in front of himself and presses the barrel against his dark hair. _

 

_ “Don’t try anything even stupider, Ren,” Hux hisses, seething. He’s never seen the man this furious, his face pale and red in splotches, grip shaking around the gun. It’s not nerves, and Ben has no desire to test whether he’d shoot the kid, so he stays still and silent. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” _

 

_ “The right thing,” Ben blurts automatically, and finds that simple answer is true.  _

_ “Don’t give me that,” Hux snaps. “I knew you were up to something, but this is a level of idiocy even I couldn’t have predicted. What did you think was going to happen? You’d meet up with your little girlfriend would work out a deal for you? Your hands are just as dirty, Ren!” _

 

_ “This isn’t how we do things!” he shouts back, allowing the roaring anxiety at the back of his mind to translate into righteous fury. “We don’t fuck around with kids and foreign shit, I don’t know how you even talked Snoke into backing this operation!” _

_ “I don’t need him!” Hux pauses with an eerie sort of shine to his expression, madness that Ben recognizes with an unpleasant churning in his gut. “You’re still too blind to see it. Snoke hasn’t been in charge for a long time, Ren. You’ve been following  _ my _ orders, like the loyal dog you are.” All that registers is confusion for a moment, and then he’s brought back to it as Hux hisses an order for the boy to kneel, gun still a hair’s breadth from his skull. His shoulders shake a little and Ben distantly thinks the kid is probably crying. _

 

_ “All these months and you didn’t suspect a thing,” Hux goes on, arrogance overshadowing the rage for the moment. “Snoke’s most trusted weapon and you had no idea all those tasks, all the simpering praise you cling to, it was all from me.” _

_ “What did you do?” Ben asks, voice hollow as he already suspects the answer. _

_ “I took control.” Hux’s grip flexes, and Ben and the boy both draw in a sharp breath, frozen where they stand and kneel. “Snoke was weak and indulgent, too small-minded, too tied to the old ways, so I got rid of him. It was shockingly easy, what with you out of commission for your little healing retreat.” _

 

_ It doesn’t seem real, to think of Snoke as dead. He’s hardly a man in Kylo’s mind, just a shadowy figure who always wielded power over men like he was made for it. It shunts the past year into a new perspective, and one he doesn’t much care for. They were all fooled, cowed into obedience so that the one man who thought to turn against Snoke was able to simply supplant him and use that unquestioning loyalty to build his own schemes. And Kylo - well, he’s been carrying out orders for Hux’s benefit, killing for a greedy bastard who is somehow a step further into the mires immorality than the ancient creature Kylo thought he was serving. _

_ He tries to remember when was the last time he met with Snoke in person and is shoved unceremoniously into the memory of begging a few weeks to himself, already pale and sweaty, fresh from leaving Rey. Snoke had been reluctant but granted him the reprieve with all the disdain and generosity of a particularly surly grandfather. Kylo was likely one of the last people to see the man alive. It would have been the perfect time for Hux to make his move. _

 

_ Ben thinks back to the weeks after he’d returned, to wondering why everything had seemed so wrong once he’d come back sober. More recently, to when he’d been so consumed by the mission and Rey and what was between them. He’d been the one accusing her of losing focus, and he has to wonder if there was a moment he should have known. If he should have caught on to Hux’s self-assurance or the implications of this shift to more dangerous waters sooner. It’s a wash of guilt that Ben doesn’t have time to indulge in at the moment, but it nags at the back of his mind, a steady pulse that he should have  _ known _. _

 

_ “You killed him,” he says, not a question but a need to have it confirmed. Hux’s expression says it all, smug triumph and not the slightest hint of hesitance.  _

_ “Of course I did,” Hux says simply. “You didn’t expect me to be content to watch Snoke squander his resources when I could do so much more, did you? You know me better than that,  _ Ben _.”  _

 

_ His name comes off Hux’s tongue like poison spat on the floor, and Ben shakes, a heady combination of fury and self-loathing and tight-held restraint. He could just about tear Hux’s head from his body any given day, but now, when the reasons for just ending his life are piled up higher than ever, there’s not a thing he can do about it. His feet are cemented to the floor so long as Hux has his hostage, and he hates it more than he’s hated almost anything. Almost as much as he hates Hux using  _ his _ name, the one only Rey uses, like Hux has any right to it. It’s a personal, insidious little theft that digs under Ben’s skin and  _ writhes _ like a sickness. He hasn’t been Ben for Hux for near on a decade. The man Hux knows, the man who would gladly kill him, is all Kylo Ren. _

 

_ Rey should be here any minute, all he has to do is wait, and that forced inaction kills him, necessary as it is. She’ll be all kinds of upset that Ben didn’t manage to get away, but there’s no way he can now. If he runs, there’s no doubt in his mind Hux would simply shoot him. He could kill Hux where he stands, sacrifice the boy and leave Hux’s corpse and fingerprints on the gun as the only evidence they’ll need to put the murder of a child on a dead man.  _

_ Kylo could get away like that, he’s almost sure. There’s even a chance Hux would react by trying to shoot him instead of the boy, but it’s a chance Ben can’t take. He doesn’t remember the details of his own kills, but he knows if that boy winds up dead, it will haunt Ben for the rest of his life - what’s left of it. _

 

_ “Now,” Hux starts when Ben’s seething silence continues. Apparently his lack of action is enough to make Hux believe he’s won. “You and I ought to be getting out of here. Your girlfriend should be here very soon, yes? I don’t intend to meet her friends and frankly I think you’ll see the sense in my methods once you’re away from her. This is your life, Ren, you have nowhere else to go but prison.” _

_ Against his will, humiliatingly, Ben flinches, gaze ducking for a half second of weakness, because Hux is right. He has nothing but this, he’s destroyed every other option, losing the neat getaway Rey so desperately wanted for him, devoting the past ten years to ruining the man Ben Solo could have been. Rey has her bust, there’s no way Hux will be able to organize anything large-scale for years to come if ever. He could catch Hux in a moment of weakness eventually, take him out when he has the chance if he plays along now. _

 

_ “I don’t know where the other brats have run off to, but this one…” The barrel nudges against the boy’s head, a lazy gesture that speaks volumes. “He’s seen and heard too much, I think.” _

_ Hux’s thumb slides to the side, away from where the kick would bend it back, and Ben doesn’t think. He just lunges forward, a ragged “No!” leaving him before he can stop it. He doesn’t get within reach before Hux swings the gun up to point straight at him, less than three feet between them as Ben stops short. He grits his teeth against the urge to just tackle Hux over the kid now practically huddled on the ground. That kind of tussle would leave no guarantee as to where and when the gun might go off. _

 

_ “You’re worse off than I thought,” Hux mutters, glowering full-out. He’s disappointed, if Ben is reading him right. “Fine then -” _

_ Ben doesn’t get to find out what’s on the end of that sentence, though it would likely have been nothing good, because Hux cuts himself off as the scream of sirens becomes audible. Judging by the rapidly increasing volume, the vehicles are less than a minute away. Ben feels his mouth crack into a grin, possibly a bit mad himself, but viciously pleased that, at the very least, Hux can’t get out of this.  _

_ He realizes the same thing, of course, cursing rapidly and colorfully, and Ben doesn’t flinch when he almost pulls the trigger. His grin widens, in fact, drawing another round of even more infuriated cursing. Then Hux does something very odd. He glances at the door behind them, there and back too quick for Ben to use the moment, and gives a nasty imitation of a smile before tossing the gun at Ben. He fumbles it in his surprise, even worse when the boy is propelled toward him to stumble against Ben’s front, but it’s in his hand, aimed at Hux’s pale face as the spray of gravel can be heard outside, pounding feet and raised voices a second later. _

 

_ Hux’s intention hits him just about the same time the FBI starts flooding into the building, their own weapons raised. Hux already has his hands behind his head, a desperate look plastered on his face as he gets to his knees, making the least threatening target possible. It would have been stupid to give Ben a weapon before now, but as the officers storm the building, the scene they encounter is Hux in submission, Kylo Ren standing with a weapon in hand, a young boy in front of him looking scared out of his mind. First glance makes him the prime target here. _

_ For some reason, the same instinct that had compelled him to tell Rey about his suspicions so many weeks ago, the same one that keeps him awake at night, Ben pushes the kid behind himself and leaves his own chest an open target. He thinks about how stupid it is even as he’s doing it. Rey would yell at him for this, he thinks with a touch of grim irony. It’s impulsive and likely to get him killed, but this damn kid has already been through enough without having to play bargaining chip again. _

_ He sees Rey in the crowd by the door, kitted out in a bulletproof vest and staring straight at him and his heart misses a beat when their eyes meet. Her face looks placid but he knows it’s a mask. Her eyes are screaming. This is the opposite of what she wanted. Ben’s hands go up when he sees her, a silent apology started up in the back of his mind.  _ Sorry I didn’t manage to get away. Sorry it came to this. Sorry I’m probably about to be shot. _ His own gun swings down across his open palm, barely dangling there where his index finger is looped through the trigger guard. _

 

_ “Stand down!” Rey shouts, getting absolutely no response by the about twelve agents still pointing their guns at either Hux or his own chest as the swarm around them. Someone, probably Dameron judging by the look he gives her - disbelieving but resigned, someone who trusts Rey even doing something as crazy as this - shouts his own order. _

_ “Everybody stay where you are,” he calls to the circle of people that feels like bars around Ben already, voice carrying far more authority than Rey’s. “Kylo Ren, put the weapon down and put your hands behind your head or we will shoot.” _

_ Of course Ben obeys, what other choice does he have? A couple of officers flinch when he bends to place the gun on the floor, and he freezes for a heartbeat when they do. No one fires, however, and he rises again, palms on the back of his head and face impassive. _

 

_ Across the floor, Rey takes a hesitant step forward, only pausing to glance at Dameron after she’s caught herself. This may be her mission, but there are dynamics Ben isn’t privy to that probably make it inadvisable for Rey to personally make the arrest. Dameron walks forward with her though, stopping behind Hux and putting him in cuffs, rattling off his rights as he nods Rey on toward Ben. She takes a moment with the boy at his back, handing him to another officer before turning her attention to Ben. _

_ She has to stretch up a bit to reach his wrists, but he goes easily enough. “You have the right to remain silent,” Rey starts, sounding like she’s reading off a prompter, jarringly different from any tone she’s ever used with him. His hands go behind his back, and Ben stomps down on the instinct to pull and twist away from the touch of cold metal on his wrist. Her fingers follow immediately, smoothing over the vulnerable skin there for a breath before there is soft pressure for the hint of a second. She taps his wrist twice, hidden by her body a professional distance from his.  _

 

_ It takes a moment for the memory to click as Rey keeps reciting his Miranda rights, snapping the cuffs into place.  _ Follow my lead, play along, I’ll figure this out.

 

_ It was part of their code, in case they can’t speak, and it settles his irrational need to run just a little. Panic may be running up and down his spine - he shouldn’t get caught, at least not alive, there’s too much to throw at him, the whole damn book - but if Rey tells him to follow her, he will. She’s the one thing he has left, after all. From here on out, he’s entirely in her hands. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Who saw all that coming?
> 
> Apologies for the almost-lateness of this update, I beg forgiveness on the grounds of real life happening all over the place. As always, thank you thank you thank you for all of your responses! Each and every one of you is a delight!


	12. CHAPTER TWELVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear sweet readers, please excuse the delay, last week was a bit stressful - but here we are with Rey's solo (hehe) chapter. 
> 
> So without further ado, I hope you're all still enjoying this and like the pain we keep laying on you.

**CHAPTER TWELVE: [You Can Hide Beside Me (And I Won't Tell 'Em Your Name)]**

Eleven kids. There are eleven children in the truck rapidly disappearing from view and the only thing keeping Rey from vomiting is knowing that Ben will get them to safety, that the fate that was devised for them is not coming to pass. But still, they are not there yet. The arrest has not yet been made. She doesn’t know exactly where he’s going but they will find them soon. Ben will get away at an opportune time and put one of the bigger kids in charge - to stay together and wait until they see police and not move before. Then everything will be fine. When SSA Dameron will intercept Hux as soon as he steps out of his car at the docks and he can’t hurt anymore people. Then it’ll be over.

 

“So?” Phasma asks beside her, wrinkling her forehead and shaking Rey out of her restless musings. “Do you have things handled?”

“What?” She asks the tall woman and quirks an eyebrow, because isn’t that a very odd thing to say?

“You can’t believe I will stick around for whatever it is you and Kylo are putting in motion here?” Phasma asks her. “I’m not stupid. I know something is going on and I don’t want to be here when it happens.”

 

Rey doesn’t dare breathe and weighs her options. Her hand barely even so much as twitches toward the back of her pants where she has a small handgun shoved beneath the waistband when Phasma puts her hand on the one in her shoulder holster. She doesn’t take it out, it’s just a warning. “Don’t do anything silly, Rey. You’re a good shot but I am better.” Rey nods and keeps her hands where they are.

“What are you gonna do anyway?” the woman asks her. “Take over from Hux? You’re gonna ruin this operation, that much is clear. Was that whole kids thing a step too far for Kylo? Or are you just gonna make off with the money?”

“Do you really want to know?” Rey asks, her pulse racing with panic about this wholly unforeseen complication. How did Phasma figure this out? Where Ben and her so sloppy in their communication? Or was it just that Phasma is a woman and can pick up on things like that? How much has she gathered from her observations anyway?

 

“I don’t,” Phasma says. “I trust you won’t follow me. Good luck.”

And with this she turns on her heel and Rey should arrest her or send a pair of agents after her but she does neither. She just lets the platinum haired woman go. She’ll later excuse it as caution, as perseverance of her cover even then, to save her strength and recourses for the rest of the operation. But in the moment Phasma gets in her car and Rey stares after her tail lights getting smaller and smaller, she knows in her heart that she let her go because she respects Phasma - despite all the horrible things she’d seen her do. She let the woman go. It’s probably a very alarming proof of her rapidly decaying morals but that worry alone is not enough to make her change the fact. Rey turns, knowing by the time anyone will ask for Phasma’s whereabouts, the resourceful woman will probably already have left the country.

 

This leaves Rey to her own devices. For the first time in months she breathes in as Agent Rey Kenobi again. Fuckup-Rey is dead and gone, just like that, this part of her life buried with no ceremony or pause. It’s over, she’s not undercover anymore. When she uses her burner phone to call Dameron, she announces herself with “Kenobi” and he asks immediately if she’s okay.

“I’m alone, I’m fine,” she says. “I’m in the car, I’m supposed to tail behind the van with the kids, they left five minutes ago, I’m gonna head out now. The kids will not be brought to the docks but Hux is headed there now, he should be there any minute. He’s the head of the whole thing, if you get to him, you dismantle the rest of the group.”

“Copy,” Dameron says and then after a moment he ads, “why are they taking the kids somewhere else? Do you have a location?”

“It’s...Kylo Ren,” she says carefully. “I told you he did not like this new direction. I convinced him that we should try and get the children out. He’s taking them to a warehouse somewhere by the docks, one of the abandoned ones. If you send out two teams now, they should find them soon. Where do you want me, sir?”

 

“Get over here,” her superior decides after a seconds deliberation. “I want you with me when we make this arrest. This is largely your work, Rey.”

“Thank you, sir,” she says and wants to feel more acclaimed and proud than she does, because really, this was more Ben’s doing than hers anyway and he’s the one who will be in big trouble if he doesn’t get away in time. “I’ll hurry.”

 

She’s on the road for ten minutes when Dameron calls her again. “There is no one here,” he says. “We’ve seized the ship set up but there is no tall ginger anywhere in sight.”

“But he should be there by now,” Rey says, a flash of fear running down her spine, settling in low in her stomach hot like a fever. “Something’s wrong.” She works the phone between her cheek and her shoulder to be able to steer safer and still keep talking. “Have you already dispatched a team to find the warehouse? Maybe Hux escaped but we still need to get to the kids.”

“We’ll meet you,” Dameron says. “There’s two buildings already cleared. Three to go, I’m gonna text you the address as soon as we know, alright?” 

“Thank you,” Rey says, thumbs off the call and puts the phone on the driver’s seat. She is sitting in Ben’s car, his little treasure chest of possessions already in her jacket pocket, because he won’t get his hands on this car anymore. Best case scenario he’s already hot-wired a stranger’s vehicle and is on his way to Connecticut. Worst case… she doesn’t even want to think about that but it makes her speed up anyway. 

 

Rey doesn’t need the text announcing the warehouse’s location, she hears the sirens on the highway and catches up with the two inconspicuous black FBI vans and the one additional police car just outside of the industrial area. “Please be out of there, please be out of there,” she mumbles to herself as she cuts in front of a grey Mercedes to get behind the van unmistakably driven by SSA Dameron. He’s an expert driver, fast and a little dangerous but Rey can keep up with him. They’re quickly ahead of the police and turn the corner into a far quieter street half a minute before them. She wishes they were all so much faster the very second she sees not only the discarded van parked outside the abandoned lot but also Hux’s dark Audi.

 

“Shit,” she mutters to herself and parks the car right behind Dameron, practically jumping out of the car and to her team leader, calling out to him. “This is Hux’s car. He’s not supposed to be here, he must know something is off.” What she doesn’t say is: Christ, he might be in there with Ben. What if he hurt him? What if he hurt the kids? What if he is killing them all right now? It takes endless, precious minutes until the rest of backup is there and Rey is strapped into a bulletproof vest, her blood rushing through her skull, pounding like war drums and she wants to scream for them to move faster, to let her do it, to storm the fucking place and find out what Hux has done. She is still manically hoping that Ben got away in time, ran away before Hux got there - but then on the other side, if Hux had arrived before Ben could leave, he wouldn’t have left at all, wouldn’t even have tried because of the kids. He’d more likely die than leave them with the man who intended to get rich off of selling them to the highest bidder. Rey is practically shaking with impatience when she rips the last strap of the vest from a colleague she vaguely knows in passing. With a grunt, she sets off running, the rest of the squad following as soon as Dameron barks an order that seems like a direct reaction of her leaping into movement. 

 

“Fall back, Kenobi, “ she hears SSA Dameron call out just after the SWAT team car has arrived behind them, the men jumping out of the still moving van and catching up with their run at top speed. They push in front of the agents and detectives, dressed in black padded protective gear, heavy weapons raised to intimidate foes and defend the people following suit behind them. They breech the building expertly, efficient and fast, trained for this. But Rey still wants them to hurry up. No one is fast enough here, not if Hux is in there with Ben.

 

Still, she follows the orders given and stays behind the SWAT guys, even further behind next to Dameron, trying to place her feet steady and measured instead of running and flailing like she could. Her heart is beating up to her throat, an angry swarm of rioting butterflies turning her stomach and she can’t quite breathe as they enter the building through a small door at its eastern side. Inside at first she hears only the muted footsteps of their hunting party and then they cross into a bigger, broader room and the blood rushing through her ears cancels everything else out entirely. 

 

There is Ben, a gun in his hand pointed at Hux who looks insane but also somewhat afraid. It’s like he is trying to mimic the boy who stands between them, terrified and hunched over. Rey tries to make out if he is hurt but then Ben has already shoved him behind his back protectively and she assumes that as he puts his finger off the trigger and the gun into a safe hold, her colleagues will lower theirs as well - but they don’t.

 

“Stand down,” she calls out, knowing full well that she has no authority here but in her mind’s eye she can see one of the agents losing it, taking matters into their own hands and hurting not only Ben but potentially the little boy he keeps shielding behind his broad frame. She can feel Poe’s eyes on her but he doesn’t reprimand her, instead just repeats the order and this time the weapons are lowered, some even holstered. Poe tells Ben to put down his gun and he does, bending low but alert to set it on the floor. Once that’s done, he raises his arms above his head with a perfectly blank face. It’s enough to make her step forward but then she halts, shooting a look at her superior. She isn’t entirely sure for what; confirmation, understanding, the go-ahead? Maybe all three. He nods at her, almost imperceptibly and starts walking toward Hux, nodding her into the direction of Ben.

 

Again she has to try her hardest not to run and refrain from rushing to his side. Instead, she takes a moment to speak to the boy, just a couple of reassurances that he’ll be fine and he looks up at her big-eyed, undoubtedly recognizing her from earlier.

 

“Can you show my colleague over there which direction the other kids went?” she asks him and he nods. Only when he’s stepped out to lead two waiting agents out and after the other kids does she turn to Ben. Putting the handcuffs on him feels entirely wrong but it’s also a trained motion, just like telling him his Miranda rights. “You have the right to remain silent,” she starts.  _ Don’t say anything. _ “Everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.”  _ Just keep your mouth shut until I can figure this out. _ “You have the right to an attorney.”  _ I’ll find you the best one I can.  _ “If you can not afford an attorney one will be appointed to you. You are free to exercise these rights at any moment.” The cuffs go around his wrists, his skin hot to her touch. “Do you understand your rights? Do you want to say something?”  _ Keep your mouth shut _ , she thinks and taps his wrist twice.  _ Follow my lead, play along, I’ll figure this out. _ He says nothing. Good. 

 

Hux is equally mum but his blue eyes half pop out of his skull when she leads Ben ahead, past him, glaring at them like he would kill them both with his thoughts if he could. It’s not very surprising but still unsettling enough. 

“Hux killed Snoke,” Ben mutters under his breath when they move past the last agent in the room and at first Rey thinks she hasn’t heard right. She wants some clarification, some context but then two of the detectives catch up with them, Poe and another holding Hux between firm grips following. There is no more privacy.

“The ginger goes in the SWAT car,” Dameron says, “I’m taking our Mr. Ren here.” 

Rey feels Ben flinch at the name Hux predominantly uses for him and wants to soothe over where his shoulders get all rigid but she can’t, she can’t do anything but put Ben in the backseat of Dameron’s car and seize the moments of opportunity to talk for all they’re worth.

 

“Hux killed Snoke?” she asks and he nods.

“A year ago,” he replies. “He’s been giving the orders posing as Snoke ever since.”

“Well, fuck me,” she says and he huffs with little grace. “What a bastard.”

“You gotta get him behind bars as fast as you can,” he urges.

“We will,” Rey promises and the moment is almost over. “I’ll figure this out, okay?”

“I love you,” he says like that is an answer but she has no more time to linger and pretend to fumble with his seatbelt. She has to leave him there.

“Did you get my box?” he whispers, just before she can close the door in his face and she nods, ever so slightly until the perp-lock traps the love of her life in his first of many cells.

 

“Rey,” Poe calls out to her, walking away from the SWAT car that now holds Hux. “Is that Ren’s?”

“Yeah,” she answers, following her SSA’s eyes to Ben’s fancy car she arrived in. 

“Anything we need for evidence in there?”

“No,” she says and the lie comes as easily as unexpected. “It’s empty.”

“Fine,” he says. “Drive it over to impound and have them do a sweep, if they find nothing, you got yourself a shiny new toy.”

She nods and apparently that’s everything she is required to do now. Poe waits and stands, seizing her up for a moment. 

 

“You did good here, Rey,” he says.

“Thank you, sir,” she replies meekly.

“Then why do you look like someone kicked you in the nuts?” Again, there is this edge of suspicion to his words that unsettles her.

“The kids,” she says quickly, “They’re not out yet.”

Poe has his walkie-talkie at his lips faster than she can look, asking for a confirmation of the kid’s whereabouts.

“Seven are confirmed and on their way down,” comes a female voice from the device, tinny and distorted but clear enough to understand, “we’re now looking for the other three but they can’t be far.”

It’s a relief and Rey grabs hold of that feeling, that accomplishment and smiles, pouring her soul into it and a deep breath to calm her nerves. It’s over. All the good things, yes, but all the bad things too. This is what she came here to do, what Ben wanted her to do. They’ve saved the kids, dismantled the whole operation and if Snoke really is dead, having Hux in custody and Phasma in the wind, the First Order in New York is likely done. That’s good, that’s tremendous even. Her first undercover gig was a roaring success by any standard and she must feel and embrace that victory. 

 

“Take the day, kid,” Poe says. “You deserve it. The paperwork will still be there tomorrow.”

“I can’t just leave now,” she argues, more reflex than sincere fervor but if she’s honest, she doesn’t feel drawn to her desk right now to type up her report. She just doesn’t know what else to do with herself now that it’s all done.

“Yes, you can,” her superior insists. “In fact it’s an order. Go home, take a bath, order some pizza. It’s important to ease yourself back into your real life after ops like this. We need Agent Kenobi back on her A-game by tomorrow. Go.”

“Can I wait until the kids are out?” she asks him and he allows her this but as soon as all eleven of them are spread through the remaining cars, shaken up but finally safe, Poe nearly hauls her ass into the car himself. And she drives. And drives and drives and she would’ve been home three times but she keeps circling wider around her apartment, not quite ready to get back there yet.

 

Finn will be waiting for her. Her old life will be waiting for her and she’s not ready for that. Everything will still be the same in those four walls and how can that be when absolutely everything outside of them is different? She only stops when the sun sets and a parking spot opens that is too close to pass up on and she thinks about what to say to Finn the whole walk up. When she unlocks the door, she has nothing more prepared than “Hey, how’s it going?” She expects him to sit on the couch, laptop on his knees, or at the kitchen table, eating some spaghetti but when she puts down her bag, she finds the place deserted. She calls for Finn, once, twice, thinking he might be asleep or in the bathroom but the only trace of him is a note on the counter.

 

_ Hey Sunshine, _

_ I’m staying at a friend’s tonight to give you a little space to re-acclimatize. _

_ Looking forward to seeing you again. -F _

 

And just like that Finn has given her everything she needed once again. This was why she’d fallen in love with him; his ability to almost guess - or know by instinct - exactly what to say or do to put her at ease. In another life, he’d have been perfect for her and a part of her wants to love him like he ought to be loved, the part that yearns for simplicity and a regular, unassuming life. But she can’t. Even with Ben in a holding cell at this very moment, she can’t unlove him or walk away from what they have. Still, she allows herself the sigh of relief that she doesn’t have to tell Finn some lie about why they can’t get back together for another day. She uses it to call the best lawyer she knows and thanks every deity ever thought into existence that he agrees and promises to take the Red Eye and be there the next day.

 

Sleep comes hard, even with the reprieve. It’s weird having a bed to herself, to not have Ben’s weight on the mattress. For the better part of two months, she’s spent every night in his company so the sudden lack of his presence is startling. She dreams a convoluted mess of death and despair and wakes several times during the night, expecting long, broad arms to box her in and keep her safe but none find her. In the morning she’s neither rested nor comfortable and even a very long shower can’t quite make her feel like herself. The first time she cries it’s over cereal, because this had been their thing, their morning ritual, bent over bowls, talking and laughing. Now she’s by herself and her breakfast is tasteless. 

 

The second time she cries is on her way to where they’re holding Ben. Dameron had ordered her to come when she’d cleaned her plates because he thought if Kylo Ren was going to talk to anyone it would be her. She’s pathetically sobbing on the metro ride over because she’s angry at herself. Because she should feel happy, accomplished. She did so good, saved those kids, brought down the First Order in what will be stylised as a one-woman-operation but she feels just dull, consuming pain and loss. What is wrong with her? She works hard for a veneer of near smugness when she eventually enters the building, speaks to the agents posted in front of Ben’s holding cell and nods along to their report of him giving up all but nothing and being entirely uncooperative.

“You really think you’re gonna get anything out of him?” One of the agents asks her and she nods, keeping her face as impassive as possible.

“He trusted me,” she says. “I think he still might.”

 

“Well, good luck,” pipes the other and lets her through to the control room just adjacent to the interrogation room. There’s no one monitoring the screen right now, which is good because it means Rey can turn off both the camera and the recording devices placed strategically around the room. It means she can go in there and be herself. To make sure no one else tinkers with that, she locks the room from inside, placing a chair underneath the door handle just to be sure and keeps walking to the door. She knows Ben is sitting at the cold metal table, dressed in a grey jumper, hands cuffed to a contraption in the middle but what she doesn’t expect is how his face looks when she enters the room. That hasn’t been visible over the feed; his split lip and the purple eye, the origin of which has undoubtedly not been caught on tape. His eyes light up for the fraction of a second when he sees her, catching himself before he can give anything away to the surveillance he doesn’t know yet to be disabled.

 

She shouldn’t be surprised, really. They had him the whole night and knowing Ben he remained all but stoically silent, which would prompt a significant amount of abuse that would later be twice and thrice denied by all interrogating officers. It breaks her heart nonetheless and catapults her to him with a whimper. He gives a startled gasp when she crashes against him, kissing the sides of his face frantically a couple of times and falling into his lap.

“Rey,” he says against her neck, startled but straining to touch her all the same.

“Cams and mics are off, there’s just us now,” she says, breathing him in for just a second before she fumbles in her back pocket to get the keys she’s been handed to move and uncuff him.

“I’m so sorry,” she says as soon as his hands are free and he rubs his wrists, red and chaffed. They’ve put on the cuffs way too tight and Rey knows it wasn’t accidental.

 

“It’s okay,” he says and smiles in earnest. He just looks happy to see her, pulling her back onto his lap, hands now free to rub along her back and grab onto her thigh.

“No it’s not,” she mutters against his head, nuzzling against his hair and ear. “What did they do to you?”

“Nothing too terribly illegal,” he says. “The usual, I guess. But nothing’s broken.”

“Fucking hell,” she says. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I know,” he nods and brings his hands up to her hair and face, wandering slow and without a set path, just touching what he can with soft and gentle pressure. “We’ll figure it out. What’s going on out there, they won’t tell me anything.”

 

“All hell is loose,” Rey replies, leaning into his touch. “They’re making it a big publicity event for the bureau. The First Order is collapsing in on itself with Hux gone and the whole Snoke-at-Bernie’s thing.” She shakes her head beneath his fingers. “Everybody’s losing their shit.”

“Could’ve guessed that much,” he sighs. “I haven’t told them too much beyond the basics. Do you know what the cops are pushing for? Might help coming up with a best defense if I know the offense side of things.”

“I have no idea, they’re playing this really close to the chest,” she tells him. “You need a lawyer, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t...know any,” he shrugs almost casually, almost fatalistically and it rubs her entirely the wrong way. Like he doesn’t even think to fight this. “I’m sure they’ll provide a terrible public defender.”

 

“That’s not gonna be good enough,” she says sternly. “But I called someone. He’s damn good at what he does.” She kisses his temple, because he brushes against it and she is weak. They don’t have time for this but she thinks she might die if she doesn’t. Going on talking instead of working her lips across his whole face is a task. “I told you about him once, I don’t know if you remember; the professor I had at Quantico, law and ethics. My pretty-much mentor?”

“The one with the rumors, yeah,” he nods, hands falling to her hips where they rest.

“Yes, he’s taking your case,” she’d hoped to elicit some more of a reaction but he merely nods. “He’ll be here tomorrow and we can get started on a strategy. I think I can be around if I’m not involved with you further than you telling me things you won’t tell the others. That’s how I got in here. Poe thinks you’ll speak to me.”

“And what did I say, supposedly?” he asks. “I’ll have to be upset you turned on me, being a fed and all.”

“You gave me a little bit on Hux,” she says, making it up as she goes along. “You still care about me, even if I betrayed you.” He would, that’s why she can sell it to the other agents. No matter what, if her white lies had all been true, if she’d gotten in with him under the cover she’d bullshitted for the higher-ups at the bureau, Ben would still trust her now, even after it all blew up. It’s who they are; who she is for him. That would remain in any reality.

 

“So this lawyer,” Ben begins, brow furrowed in thought, “he’s gonna be selling me as, what? Change of heart, we got close while you were undercover, you turned me good?”

“I don’t know what his strategy will be, he wants to meet you first,” she answers matter of factly. “He knows nothing but Kylo Ren so far. I’m gonna put him up to speed as far as I can but we have to find a way around the truth without telling it. And the only sound defense there would be is the truth. So I have no idea how he’ll handle it.”

“Alright,” he nods, “we’ll...play it off the cuff then, I guess.” 

“You’ll like him though.” At least that Rey is sure of. “He gets a bit peculiar sometimes but I think you’ll get along.”

“Well, if you like him…” he lets that trail off because the ending of the sentence is easy enough to understand. “Is he a big deal? Would I have heard of him?”

“He used to be kind of famous, like he did play the big leagues but he traded that a long time ago to teach, I don’t know if you’d have heard of him,” she says. “Luke Skywalker?”

In a twist too fast to catch, Ben’s face goes completely blank. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah?” Rey raises an eyebrow at him, trying to puzzle out where that particular reaction came from. “I know it’s a weird name, he goes by Professor Luke on Campus.”

 

“Yeah, he went by Uncle Luke when I was little,” he says, his voice tight like he’s upset.

“What now?” She stares at him, with a double take and tries to process this new information. Struggling to more than a little.

“Rey, he can’t defend me. It’s-” He lets out a frustrated grunt. “Conflict of interest or something, but he  _ can’t _ defend me, he won’t.”

“No, what, of course he can,” more out of reflex than actually paying attention to the conversation. What on earth? “Professor Luke is your uncle? I mean? Are you sure?” 

“How many Luke Skywalkers do you think there are in the phonebook?” he challenges and that is a pretty good point. “He did the Vader case once upon a time, right?” 

“Yeah…” She’s still computing. “He taught a class on it actually.”

“That would be my uncle. And my grandfather, coincidentally, but that’s not the point,” he says. “Point is there’s no way he’ll agree to defend me.”

Rey forces herself to postpone dealing with the shock over this mind-boggling coincidence and focus on what matters right now. “No, he has to. He will, he promised me.” She grabs his arm, beseeching, trying to get through to him. “If I tell him everything he’ll understand. He will help us.”

“Wouldn’t it go against his precious  _ ethics  _ to lie to the court?” He shakes his head. “Rey, this is a bad idea.”

“He’s a world class attorney and you can’t have anything less than that,” she all but begs him. “Please, Ben, we need him,  _ you _ need him. And if not for you then for me, please.”

 

“Fine,” he groans and it doesn’t sound like he’s fine at all. “I’ll meet with him at least. But you should start looking into other options. Even if I agree to work with him, there’s no guaranteeing Luke will take me on as a client. You know what happened when I lived with my uncle.”

“I’m still trying to compute that, that he’s the same person you...well, whatever.” She runs her hands through his hair just to have something to do. “I mean this is insane, what kind of batshit crazy coincidence is this?”

“You picked him!” he breathes out exasperatedly. “I haven’t seen the man since I was eleven years old, I had no idea he started teaching at Quantico and lawyering again.”

“But just...imagine if you’d stayed with your mom and everything would’ve-”

“Don’t start,” he cuts her off, thinking she’s going somewhere else than she was planning to, so she doesn’t let him shut her up.

“I’m just trying to say maybe we’d have met anyway,” she says, he gives her a lingering look, like he imagines that possible story for a while.

“I’m fairly sure we’d have found each other no matter what,” he says, softer now and moves to touch her face.

“So try for  _ us _ , okay?” This is the point she means to make, to make him see they’re worth fighting for. “Try to win him over?”

 

“I’ll try,” he says and looks a little defeated. “But really, you should consider other options if this doesn’t work out.”

“I will.” She won’t, there is no other way. She will make this work, Luke is their only hope. “I can’t stay much longer,” she says with a glance at the clock at the wall. “Is there anything I can do? Anything you need? Books or… I don’t know, anything at all I can give you?”

“Just tell them whatever you need to so they’ll let you come back,” he says and she can tell he means it to come out a lot less desperate than it does. “And maybe don’t put the handcuffs back on so tight?”

“Kiss me,” she says because he’s breaking her heart. “So it keeps.”

He complies immediately, pulling her hard against his frame and she can taste the dried blood from where they punched open his lip but he doesn’t seem to mind the pain. He just kisses her harder. Intense and hungry enough to make her dizzy. This is all that matters, this is what needs saving, protecting. This moment, him and her, together.

 

“I’ve been in worse than this,” he says eventually, after she forced herself to break the kiss with the clock ticking in the back of her mind. “I can’t think of anything specific right now, but I’m sure I have. I’ll make it out of this, too.” 

“I love you,” she says and pecks him on the lips again, just for a moment. “I’ll get Luke to see he needs to take your case. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Stay strong, okay?”

“I love you, too,” he nods, eyes piercing through her skull like he wants to tattoo this into the wrinkles of her brain. “Take care of yourself, alright? I need you to be safe.”

“I will be, I promise,” she says and pries herself loose from that wonderful place on his lap. “I think about you every moment. I’m always with you, remember that.”

“I do, I know.” He takes her hand before she can get too far and squeezes it, contradicting his words as he goes on and keeping her there. “You should go, before someone tries to check up on you.”

“We’ll figure this out,” she says when he lets go of her so she can put the cuffs on him once more, but this time only tight enough to barely hold him. “You’re gonna be alright.”

“Yeah, Rey,” he looks at her like he wants nothing more than to believe her. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”

She nods and turns and leaves, before she starts crying for the third time today.

 

Rey thinks she's fine by the time she opens the door of her apartment. But her whole body goes in a shock as soon as she walks in the room and she sees Finn, sitting on her couch like he did so many times when they shared this flat - a book in his hands and a gleeful smile splitting his face upon seeing her. It’s breaking her heart in entirely different ways than she has come to know in the last few months. He jumps up from where he sits, discards his book and runs to her, gathering her up in a bear hug that doesn’t seem to end.

 

“How are you?” he asks into her hair, smelling like the past; sweet and familiar. “Superstar agent, everybody’s talking about you! I’m so proud of you.”

“Good, I’m good,” she says mechanically because she’s not ready for any of this. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s so good to see you too,” he says and squeezes her one last time before letting her go. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” she says and it’s true. “Did everything…go okay here?”

“Everything went smoothly,” he replies and grins nonchalantly. “Just the  _ one _ breaking and entering.”

“What?” She stares at him for a second, puzzling things together. Hux. Ben. Her little ill-advised adventure.

“It was nothing, someone broke the lock and left without taking anything,” Finn says, “I wasn’t even here.”

“Okay,” Rey nods. “If you’re okay, it’s all good.”

He smiles at her brightly and there’s a moment of silence she feels heavier than he does, by the looks of it, because he is not derailed from his sheer joy. “I bought groceries, I’m gonna cook for you, a huge friggin’ pot of mac and cheese, just as you like it.”

 

She excuses herself to take an unnecessary shower while he cooks, trying to gather her wits and the courage to say what must be said but she’s a coward and eats her dinner with pretend enthusiasm without even trying to have the talk with him. He seems content to pick things up where they left off and he’s just so happy, she doesn’t have the heart to end it. So they make small talk, faces stuffed with noodles and their banter about Brooklyn hipsters bleeds into an hour of reality TV she barely registers. In the back of her head she tries to collect the words she needs to speak but fails again and again, right until the point where he leans over and kisses her softly in the middle of a sentence. She kisses him back, briefly and out of reflex but his are no longer the lips she’s used to, his hand on her cheek not the one she craves the touch of. So she grabs his head with gentle fingers and pulls her face away from him.

 

“I’m sorry. I can’t…think about that right now,” she says and can’t bare to look at him as she goes on. “About. Us. If that’s okay.”

“Of course,” he says instantly, sounding disappointed, slightly startled but accepting at the same time. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to push you.”

“It’s not that, I just, I don’t think I can be with anyone right now,” she says to the floor but it’s bullshit and it isn’t fair. She needs to be honest with him, she needs to suck it up, look this wonderful, perfect man in the face and tell him as much of the truth as she can. “No, okay, listen, I don’t want to lead you on or dangle a ‘someday’. This assignment changed me. I love you but I…I can’t get back together. I’m really sorry.”

He takes a long moment to process and his face makes a little journey from hurt to sadness, to confusion and at last to solemn resignation. “Okay. I’m… Okay. Is it something I did?”

“No, no Finn, not at all,” she replies quickly. “It’s… _ I  _ am different. You did nothing wrong at all, you’re perfect.”

“Okay,” he scooches away from her, if only a little bit but the distance between them is like a third presence in the room, wedging itself between their bodies.

“I’m sorry,” her voice is hollow.

“It’s alright. It…will be,” he says and smiles for her, kind and patient. “I’ll, I’ll probably go? Yeah, I think it’s best if I go.”

 

And with that he rises, haltingly, as if he is holding out hope that she will change her mind and ask him to stay. It rips and pulls at her that she can’t. She can only watch him gather his bag from the counter, smile bravely one last time and head for the door.

“Bye, Finn,” she says tightly.

“Goodbye, Rey,” he says and then he leaves.

That’s the fourth time Rey cries on this wretched day. 

 

The next one is no better.

 

For the entire morning, she’s restless and can’t concentrate on a single thing for longer than five minutes. She tries reading, watching TV, surfing the web, sleeping, which is a joke in and of itself, and the rest of the time she checks her phone every other minute to see if Luke has arrived in the city. When he finally texts her the address of his hotel, she is in a cab faster than she’s ever made it out of her apartment before. Twenty minutes later she knocks at his door and tells him everything. He listens patiently, asking for clarification a couple of times but never at inappropriate times and to her surprise she manages not to cry even once.

 

She saves Ben’s real name for the end though, just to make sure Luke understands the situation before potential family history bias can derail him. Her old mentor’s face falls in such a way that she can see the resemblance to Ben for the first time.

“It’s a strange world,” Luke mutters after some time of turning this information visibly over in his head.

“I know, it’s a crazy coincidence,” she agrees, trying to maybe make a little light of it.

“So my best student in years ended up being the girlfriend of my long lost nephew turned criminal.” He shakes his head, echoing her sentiment exactly. The odds of this happening were microscopic, much like Rey and Ben finding each other again, and yet here they all are.

“So what do we do now?” she asks him, somewhat at a loss. 

“Now we go and talk to Ben Solo,” Luke says and rises. 

 

On the way over, Rey announces their arrival, requesting a room to have their high security inmate meet his council. She can practically hear how reluctant they are to grant them a room without surveillance but even they can’t get around attorney-client privilege so they don’t have a choice. They are walked to a nondescript windowless room with grey walls the same shade as Ben’s jumper.

 

“The cuffs won’t be necessary in here,” she tells the guard who walks Ben in and puts him on the chair. He doesn’t react and so she flashes her ID because at least her credentials seem to carry somewhat of an authority in here. “I am FBI, I handled him, I know what I am talking about. Uncuff him.”

The guard finally obliges and leaves them to a tense silence, as Luke and Ben size each other up and Rey thinks that this must be the first time her old teacher has seen his nephew as a grown man.

“So who talks first?” Ben says eventually, snide and unpleasant and Rey half wants to slap the back of his head for being so stubbornly unhelpful. “You talk first, I talk first?”

“Well…” Luke says after a deep breath and sits down at the table across from her and Ben. “It appears you did. This is quite the pickle you got yourself into, Ben.”

“You have a talent for understatement,” he answers dryly.

 

Rey turns toward her boyfriend and gently rubs his shoulders to keep him somewhat calm. “Luke wants to hear your side of the story.” She locks her gaze on his, hoping that he’ll let her steer him a bit towards this whole thing actually being a productive first talk, instead of two headstrong men glaring angrily at each other for an hour. “We’re not sure what charges they will bring you up on but the human trafficking and hits will probably be part of it.”

Ben leans into her touch, less forceful than he normally would, presumably because he is very aware of the other person in the room with them but at least he follows her lead. 

“Fine,” he says and then turns to his uncle. “Before we start, how much did Rey tell you?”

“Everything,” Luke says gravely and holds his nephew’s stare for a second before his eyes flicker to Rey, as if to make sure it’s really true.

“Everything,” she confirms and squeezes Ben’s skin again. “He knows about us.”

 

“And even if we want that off the record, I think we should build our defense around the fact that you sought her out, that the dismantling of the operation was essentially your plan,” Luke starts, cutting to business because he knows how fleeting this time is as well as Rey does. 

“No,” Ben snaps immediately. “I don’t want them to know she lied to the FBI. Rey doesn’t get implicated for anything, that’s my terms.”

“Ben, I am asking you to reconsider,” Luke says intently, leaning forward in his chair and putting his arms on the table.

“It’ll be fine,” Rey chimes in, trying to get the man beside her to look at her, to read in her eyes that she’s serious, that she’d rather lose her job than see him painted in a worse light than he deserves. “I’ll take my chances.”

“I won’t corroborate it,” he remains stubborn, as she knew deep down he would. “I’ll say whatever else you want me to say, but I won’t testify against Rey.”

Luke groans, both frustrated and impatient. “That’s the same darned thick-headedness that got you into this mess in the first place.”

“Don’t preach to me right now,” Ben shoots back, on the verge of real anger that makes Rey’s hand fly from his shoulder to his to hold it tightly. He is not derailed by the pressure of her fingers interlaced with his. “That’s the deal. Spin it however you want from there, but I’m not telling them Rey lied to the government. You can say I came up with the idea to bring it down if you want, but it has to be after she started the operation.” His voice catches on itself as he apparently grasps at ideas and Rey hates it. He won’t be deterred from this. “Let’s say I...I confided in her after she gained my trust, let her in on the job when I thought it was going too far. Something.”

 

“Fine,” Luke grits out and then thinks for a second. “We can work with that. But I must rest my case, it is stupid of you to throw the most redeeming thing you did away like that.” 

“I can still be a character witness,” Rey offers. Ben will have to agree to at least this.

“They’ll want you for the state,” Luke dismisses her with a lazy wave of his hand.

“Then cross-examine me,” she insists. “Maybe that’ll look even better for the jury.” 

“Yes,” her old professor agrees and looks like he’s already playing out possible lines of questioning in his head.

“And we’ll...we’ll get the kids too,” she continues, “they’ll testify that he was trying to keep them safe.”

“Kids always do well before a jury,” Luke nods, “maybe I can pull some strings and get more women on it, they-”

“That’s great,” Ben interrupts the two of them in their brainstorming like a slap. “But none of it stops me from having broken about a dozen laws. What’s the bottom line? Plea deal? Reduced sentence?”

“Luke thinks maybe we can get you in as an informant, no charges at all, you give them everything you have on the First Order and get witness protection,” she tells him what ideas Luke and she have been playing around with on the way over.

“If that doesn’t work then yes, a plea deal,” he chimes in. “Best case scenario would be five to seven years. If we can play up the reformed conscience angle.”

“You’re both being very optimistic.” Ben sounds sceptical at best and turns fully to Luke with a dangerous glint in his eye. “Hoping I’ll go out a martyr like my grandfather?”

 

The Vader case made waves back in the day, not just because the young upstart lawyer Luke Skywalker took the defence of his aged father, who’d built a giant building on a landfill without disclosing it and was thus responsible for the death of thousands of people when the structure collapsed on itself with no warning. It had also been a trial with one of the most tragic endings; Anakin Skywalker, head of Vader Enterprises, repenting and broken, had gathered sympathy by apologizing tearfully for the mistakes made, pleaded guilty and resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to doing right by the families of the people whose blood was on his hands. And on the day when he would’ve gotten twenty years of federal prison, someone shot him dead on the steps of the court.

 

“I am hoping you don’t go out at all,” Luke says and straightens, looking all the part of an elderly uncle. “I always cared about you, Ben. I am not the bad guy here, I’m trying to help you.”

“Then cut the condescending faith in the system crap.” Ben leans forward in his chair as well. “We both know Hux is going to latch onto whatever deal he’s offered, and he hasn’t personally killed any cops. It’s going to be down to who plays the better changed man.” He takes a breath, maybe because he needed to or maybe because Rey squeezed his fingers again, she can’t be sure. “You want my side of the story, fine. You can tell me afterward what’s going to be the best sell.”

 

Ben keeps his side of the story much briefer than Rey had and he doesn’t put so much emphasis on how they reconnected. She’d kind of run away with that for a second there in Luke’s hotel room, because it had been so good to disclose the whole story to one single soul at least. But Ben steers clear of the heavy emotional side of it all and offers the hard facts instead; that the children had been a step too far and that things had started to shift and change in the First Order and he hadn’t liked it. That Rey had changed him, or rather, she’d reminded him who he was before, who he could’ve been and that it had made him focus his efforts on destroying the organisation that he’d helped run and that had truthfully run him for so long.

 

In the end, the story they plan to go with is that he was disgruntled about the state of affairs in the organisation and opposed to trafficking children, thus, he’d brought in Rey, whom he always believed to be her downtrodden former foster-sister and planned to take down the operation side by side with her. They supposedly planned to get the children to safety the day of the drop and leave an anonymous tip for the feds to take down Hux and the Order and make off to Mexico for a while. It’s close enough to the truth to sell and it keeps Rey’s cover and integrity intact, which seems to be all that really matters to Ben anyway.

 

“This can work,” she says after Luke laid it out for them again.

“They will ask about the nature of your relationship,” Luke says, eyeing them for a while.

“So, what do we say?” Ben’s forehead is crumpled into a deep frown. “Can we- Could I have loved her? Nothing… Not like it really is, but cared enough to take care of her, to run away together. I can act the betrayed heartbroken guy.”

“We can’t have you be angry or heartbroken.” Luke shakes his head with determination. “You need to be likeable. But if we want to keep Rey from that line of questioning, we can’t go down the reciprocated romance road. Can you be in love with her on the stand in a positive, hopeful way?”

“I...guess,” Ben says and makes a face. When he goes on after a moment’s thought, his words come slow as he’s constructing the story as he goes along. “I could have...cared about Rey and not done anything about it. I’d be upset she turned out to be a cop, but, you know. More wishing she’d told me so I could be in on it. Tell them I would have supported the counter-operation if I’d known. It’s...almost the truth. And I think I’d come across as wanting her forgiveness. To get back in her good graces if I’m given the chance.”

 

“That’s a narrative that would probably sell, yes,” Luke says. “We’ll go with that.”

“I suppose that means you’re officially taking my case then,” Ben says.

“I was always going to do that.” Luke’s voice has a tint of lingering, almost parental impatience and Rey can practically feel the hairs on Ben’s arms stand up. “How can you doubt that? We are family.”

“Family hasn’t meant much to me for years, I hope you understand,” Ben deadpans with a snark.

“Baby,” she coos but makes sure to keep a bit of a warning swinging along with it. This time he holds on tighter to her hand.

“Rey is more family to me than my blood,” he says. “I hardly know you anymore,  _ Uncle _ Luke, you can’t expect me to be able to have blind faith in the people who abandoned me before.”

 

“We never meant for that to happen. Neither me nor your parents,” he answers and then stops short, like he just thought of something. “Your… father. He, I’m sorry, Benny, I don’t know if anybody told you. He died. A couple of years ago.”

“Don’t...call me that,” Ben says, rigid and Rey feels a little bad because she did call him Benny from time to time and he really does not seem to like it. “And I know, I- I went to pay my respects.” The last part comes out under his breath, a snide, ugly thing. “Not that they were much deserved.”

“I know Han wasn’t the best father he could’ve been. But he loved you. So does your mother,” Luke says and Rey knows it’s her cue to stop him from talking. Because Luke should not be the one to tell Ben. Her old professor doesn’t catch her wide eyes though, and so it’s all for naught. “She’s on her way here,” he says and Ben groans in frustration, dropping her hand because he needs it to bury his head in for a moment and then holler at the table. 

“When did this turn into some kind of fucking family reunion? I don’t want her here.”

 

“Ben, she has not seen you in years, she has not heard of you,” Luke pleads. “If they start spreading your name around tabloids and news stations tomorrow, would you have wanted her to find out from a smug, obese news anchor or from her brother?”

“I don’t  _ care _ who she hears it from,” he bites and sounds like he’s not a day older than sixteen and about to throw a tantrum. “I don’t give a damn. She was perfectly content with not having a son for almost twenty years, why should she give a fuck now?”

“No,” Luke exclaims, hitting his palm hard on the table with a bang so harsh and sudden it makes both Ben and Rey jump. The old man doesn’t care, he just gets more and more worked up as he speaks, positively vibrating with anger in his seat. “No! You don’t get to sit here, a grown man, and be such a goddamn brat about it. Do you even know what your mother went through? When they placed you after the stunt you pulled that summer with me, she went through every hoop and appealed to every judge she could find but they wouldn’t let her see you, wouldn’t even tell you where you got placed. Your dismal behavior did that, your behavior made her look like an unfit mother. She was a goddamn wreck for years, Ben.  _ Years _ .”

 

“Oh,  _ she _ was a wreck?” Ben says, just as heated and snaps up from his chair, standing slightly hunched over but still impressive and intimidating in his broad size. “She couldn’t manage a ten year old so I got shipped off and left alone and you’re goddamn right I had bad behavior because who was ever going to stop me? You all certainly couldn’t get your head out of your ass long enough to think maybe I didn’t need to ‘find myself’, I needed a fucking  _ parent _ for once, not a spiritual fucking crusader. She and her  _ years _ can kiss my ass. I was a  _ child _ and not one of you took responsibility for the fact that, shit, maybe I should’ve been treated like a child instead of a nuisance.” His arms flap around in exasperation and he sits back down with a huff when she pulls at his hand, his voice losing none of the edge for it. “You talk to me about fucking  _ years _ being a wreck when you think about how I didn’t know jack shit about what was happening. They just took me away and not a god damn one of you showed up to stop it.”

“We weren’t,” Luke begins and he’s shouting before he can catch himself and breathe, and go on. “We weren’t told where you got sent.”

 

“Baby, Ben, please,” Rey says and gathers his hand again, bringing it up to her mouth to kiss it this time.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over,” he says, half to her and half to himself and then turns back to Luke. “If she’s going to be here, fine, she can do what she wants, but don’t expect me to be happy about getting shouted down by both of you.”

“She missed you terribly, she’s not gonna shout if you don’t give her a reason,” Luke insists. “I know I can’t make you, but you should at least think about seeing her.”

“I’m sure she’d love to see her loser son in prison after all these years,” Ben scoffs resentfully. “Sure does make you  _ right _ , doesn’t it?”

“Ben,” Rey interjects, her voice sharp as a whip, because even if she doesn’t know the woman, him accusing his mother of such pettiness rubs her the wrong way. “That’s enough.” He stares blankly ahead, not saying anything more but decidedly not going to apologize either. It makes Rey get closer, use her free hand to tip his face to hers and kiss him briefly but gently on the lips, just to make him settle down a bit.

“It’s okay,” she says when she leans back.

“If she wants to see me, I won’t turn her away,” he says to her, taking this moment of tenderness with open arms but he’s still obviously acutely aware of Luke there with them.

“Thank you,” she tells him and lets the moment linger for a while longer before she speaks to Luke again. “So what now?”

 

“Now I’ll go see the DA and try to get this whole thing done with quietly without a trial,” he says, morphing back into a lawyer with an ease that reminds her a lot of Ben and how he was able to switch between the man she loved and Kylo Ren, the threatening hit-man without a particularly high regard for life in a heartbeat and no effort at all.

“How are our chances?” she asks.

“Fifty-fifty I’d say.” Luke offers a noncommittal shrug. “If they go for a trial, you’ll be moved to a state prison. How are your conditions so far? Are they treating you alright?”

“Apart from the beating they gave him during interrogation?” Rey says. Now it’s on her to be bitter but Ben won’t let her.

“It’s fine,” he cuts in over her. “There’s no evidence of it anyway, I’m sure, so it’s not worth making noise about. And I’ll be more cooperative now we have our story straight.”

Rey wants to challenge him on that and point out that the evidence is all over his bruised body underneath the clothes they put him in but it’s no use so she doesn’t bother. Ben is all out of compromises today, she’s well aware of that.

 

“I will get started on the paperwork straight away,” Luke says, already moving on. “But I’d advise that Rey no longer tag along to these things. It will look suspicious if the prosecution gets wind of it.” 

“So that means I can’t see him anymore?” Somehow, Rey only just realizes this now. Obviously she can’t. And Luke just confirms it again for her.

“It’s alright,” Ben says to her, voice lowered as to purposefully exclude his uncle from this specific bit of conversation. “If we’re not… If we don’t go to trial, or once we’re out of the spotlight…” Now he does turn to Luke again, which in itself is a testament to the desperation he’s trying hard to cover up. “We can work something out, right?”

“What you do after the trial depends on Rey, I guess,” he says, “but it won’t fly well in the bureau to be too involved with a convicted felon, I trust you understand this.”

 

“I don’t care about that,” she promises Ben.

“Rey, that’s your  _ career _ ,” he says hushed, leaning in and away from his uncle. “I don’t want to mess everything up. I...want to see you, but I want you to be okay.”

“We’ll figure it out, I promise,” she moves in again and kisses him for real, despite the company and with her eyes closed, she can hear Luke walk in the direction of the door, giving them this brief moment of privacy. His eyes are alight when she breaks away and she has to smile. “Keep thinking of me, okay? At night.”

“Of course I will. I think about you all the time. I love you so much,” he whispers and kisses her cheeks, her forehead and then raises his voice, still holding on to her. “Luke.” It seems to be a task to look away from her but this is something she knows he needs to do, even if it comes hard. “Thank you. For your help.”

“No thanks are necessary. Like I said, we’re family.”

 

Ben nods and now his attention is back on Rey, so intently, she feels the world outside of this, of their connection slip away. “If I can’t see you, at least he can tell me how you’re doing. Just don’t…” he trails off for a second. “Don’t let them get to you. Remember that I love you.”

“I do, I will.” And this time she kisses him harder, because it might be the last chance she gets in a long time. 

 

“We’ll have a future, no matter how. Just...maybe if all works out and you get five years… that’s nothing,” she says when they break apart. “We can be together after. We can still have a life together.”

“One day at a time, sweetheart,” he mutters and strokes her face a little, like he’s trying to memorize her, just in case. She doesn’t even want to think about it.

“Alright.” It’s hard for her to speak though the lump in her throat. “Okay, I’ll see you. Eventually. I’ll have Luke pass you notes.”

 

“I’ll be waiting,” he promises and kisses her one more time. “Go on, before I try to keep you here.”

“I would stay if I could. I really would,” she says, hugging him and then eventually moves away to join Luke by the door.

“I’m trusting you, uncle,” Ben says, stuck on his chair as it seems and Rey knows he means that he’s trusting this long estranged family member with his case, the woman he loves, with everything that matters to him anymore. “I hope I won’t regret it.”

“I promise I won’t let you down again,” Luke says in earnest and Rey can’t breathe for a while because none of this is fair at all. Ben drops his gaze, staring at the table as he nods his acceptance. She can still see the pain and regret tug at his features and it breaks her a little. She loves him, more than anything and then Luke knocks at the door to be let out and they have to leave him there, alone and with an uncertain future ahead of him. A future that she might never get to really share with him.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...that was a wild ride. What do you think, where you surprised about Luke? Does your heart break for Ben, Rey and Finn? Are you ready for just three more regular chapters?


	13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back together again! In a manner of speaking. This chap will follow the usual layout of POV switch, so we're back on track. And if you thought the dramatics were over, well, you are in for a surprise.
> 
> Apologies for lateness, but as the story draws to its conclusion, real life has been a bit of a mess and we're also a bit baffled it's almost over... Thank you as always for coming with us this far, and bless you for all your kudos, comments, and just keeping up. :)

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN: [Praying For Love and Praying in Naivety]**

 

Luke comes over for dinner most days. He’s quickly becoming her bridge, to Ben, to the workings of his incarceration, to everything Rey shouldn’t have or seek knowledge of. He answers her questions patiently and makes an effort not to judge. She can tell it’s an effort because sometimes he can’t help the look on his face when she talks about loving Ben and sticking it out with him. She hates it. Not just because he eyes her like she is naive and pathetic but also because he should at least try and see the man Rey loves in the nephew that disappointed him. Every defendant deserves a loyal lawyer, someone who believes in them and one day, over under-seasoned shrimp, Rey tells him as much with her voice raised and her cheeks glowing.

 

A couple of days later, when her temper has settled, Luke makes an attempt at reconnection that she jumps at. They both apologize and chalk it up to high running nerves. It’s nice to have him back but he still doesn’t bring her good news. The motion to dismiss and grant Ben immunity to become an informant and get him into witness protection has been pretty much laughed off. And where Luke seems like he’s not surprised at all, Rey is crushed for longer than she cares to admit. To make matters worse, Hux is apparently courting a nice assembly of plea deals and offering testimony where the state can practically pick what they want him to say and Hux will say it - just under the condition that he gets in a nice white collar prison on a reduced sentence. Obviously pointing any finger he has at Ben. It doesn’t help that in addition to all of this, it also looks like they have no intention of going to trial quickly, which could mean up to six months of Ben just vegetating in some jail cell waiting to be heard. And there is nothing she can do about it. Just as there is nothing she can do when the story breaks and the entire local news section on TV runs it to the ground. Dragging Ben’s name through the mud. It makes her sick.

 

They’re misconstruing Ben’s rescue of the kids as him merely transporting them, carting them off to their doom like a heartless monster. There is talk of a little boy Ben supposedly threatened with a gun - innuendos made about that in a nasty way that shouldn’t be on TV in that tone about someone who is neither guilty nor _found_ guilty yet. It’s bad for the case, that he’s all over the local news. There’s a fat chance the jury he gets will be unbiased after all of this and it’s simply not fair. She has half a mind to call the station but what would she say? _Please stop spreading lies about my boyfriend, the one on trial for human trafficking, he’s a stellar dude, I swear..?!_ Yeah, not likely. So she does nothing and tries to keep her anger down and sit on her hands when the people at work start saying the same uninformed crap the newscasters are spewing.

 

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty anyway? Her colleagues talk as if Hux and Ben were a homoerotic, slightly perverse murder-duo with a soft spot for young boys and who deserve death if not something worse twenty times over, with no attempt to actually learn what happened. And she is right there, literally in the same halls with them. Sure, they ask her a great deal about the take down and the gory details about the corruption in the foster system, but whenever she tries to put into context what Ben did and that he was not a part of that whole ordeal, people start tuning out. Behind her back, she hears someone call her “Stockholm Syndrome, over there”. For the first time in her career, she is not proud of being an agent. For the first time in her career, she’s not sure if she wants to be FBI anymore if being with the Bureau means condemning someone before even pausing to get the full story.

 

***

 

_The motion to dismiss is denied, of course, but then Ben didn’t really expect his case to get thrown out. He’d expected from the beginning that this was going to end with himself either dead or behind bars. So it’s not that he’s surprised when Luke comes to give him the news, but Ben is disappointed despite his best efforts not to get his hopes up. It’s a terrible habit that Rey has gotten him into, hoping for things, and he’d be better off bracing himself for the next blow. Especially if he’ll be spending the next probably long while in amongst not only murderers, rapists, and thieves, but those among their number stupid enough to get caught._

 

_Seeing his uncle this time is easier, despite him being the bearer of bad news. Ben’s had a chance to see him, older and weary, and it’s not so shocking as it was the first time. They’ve also both had time to themselves to cool off and reign in their reactions. Besides, Ben is more focused on the task at hand and less interested in rehashing old issues with Luke. They clearly don’t see anywhere near eye to eye, and while Ben realizes he now owes his uncle for agreeing to take his case, as well as providing Rey with a clearly cherished mentor figure, it doesn’t evaporate away their shared past. He can be civil when he’s focused, and Ben zeroes in on that in the hopes he can avoid getting in another shouting match with his uncle._

 

_“I’m going to have to go behind some people’s backs to stay in the loop of what Hux’s attorney is planning,” Luke says, shuffling through the papers of notes he’d brought in his briefcase. Hux is, as they predicted, attempting to cut his own deals, and it complicates Ben’s case even further. Evidently, Hux is claiming he facilitated the child trafficking operation but that Kylo Ren had an equal hand in pitching and planning the idea._

_“They should keep you informed anyway,” Ben says. He hasn’t been quiet about his resentment toward the hushed backroom deals going on, and he doesn’t intend to be quiet about it any time soon. “It’s_ my _freedom they’re bargaining with.”_

 

_“The court can only pass on to me what that bastard Mitaka passes on to them.” Luke is impatient with these proceedings, if not as openly irritated as Ben is. “Slimey upstart. He was still in my ethics class at Harvard three years ago, following the wrong ideals even then. The boy has been pushed to act with no morals, no qualms and not an honest bone in his body. He’ll do whatever’s asked of him to win.”_

_“That would be why Hux hired him, I can only assume. They seem to get along swimmingly.” In truth, Ben has a vague familiarity with Mitaka. He’d only met the man once or twice, but he knows he’s one of the lawyers Snoke had hired on the occasions they’d needed to provide defense for one of their own. Snoke had been far more in favor of letting anyone foolish enough to get taken in suffer on their own._

 

_“I’ll put someone on it,” Luke assures him. “He won’t make a move we won’t know about.”_

_“And we’ll be playing clean?”_

_“We’re keeping Rey out,” Luke says pointedly. “That is lying. So not clean at all. But we won’t make dirty deals, they’ll only bite us in the behind later.” Luke mentions trying to get more sympathetic ears on the jury benches while Ben resists the urge to roll his eyes like a petulant child. This is why he’d never cared for dealing with his uncle. Luke has an unwavering sense of right and wrong that grates on Ben’s nerves simply because it doesn’t work in the real world. There are more grays than blacks or whites, but Luke rarely bends to that truth. The only exception he’s ever made is to follow a hapless belief that everyone is capable of goodness if given the chance._

 

_“Alright, as clean as we can without endangering Rey then. I won’t. She’s…” Ben shakes his head, huffing a soft breath and crossing his arms over his chest. “She’s too important and she doesn’t deserve any of this. She was just trying to do the right thing, that’s why I called her.”_

_“I can’t decide if that was noble or reckless of you.” Luke appears to take a moment to think, fingers tapping on his papers before he looks up at Ben. “You could’ve just called in a tip. But you wanted her, didn’t you?” Ben stiffens at the mildly questioning tone, one he’s heard before that is deceptively gentle when anyone else would be accusatory. “Did you plan on seducing her from the beginning?”_

_Ben swallows the urge to hiss back a venomous response like it’s a razor-edged pill and forces himself to be patient when he answers, “Of course I didn’t. I trust Rey, I don’t trust the chances that an anonymous tip would’ve been passed on to the right ears past the dirty cops on the First Order payroll. Even if it did, I couldn’t have known how it would play out in real time.” It’s all true enough, the same thought process Kylo had gone through in the minutes between learning what was happening and deciding to call Rey. “It was selfish ensuring I would have some measure of control over the situation, but it wasn’t a recklessly-made choice.”_

 

_Luke deliberates with himself for a moment before nodding. “Good. Say something to that effect in court.” He visibly changes track, a deep frown settling over his face that lengthens the lines around his mouth. “Now cut the act. I want the truth, Ben. Did you pursue her? Was that your intention, to have her where she is now?”_

_This stern version of Luke must have been what was left behind when Ben ran away from him, and it’s likely this was the man who could control classes of future agents with enough force to inspire admiration. It inspires no such thing in Ben, especially when he can feel Luke’s disapproval rolling off him in waves._

_“No.” Ben’s hands tighten where they’re tucked under his biceps with his arms crossed. “There is a very long history between me and Rey, and I don’t have time to tell it. But what you need to understand is I never wanted to hurt her. I can’t help how I feel about her or her about me, but I told her this was a bad idea. She told me the same. It didn’t stop either of us.”_

 

_“I know the story. I know you cared for her when she was a child.” So Rey must have told him at least the skeleton of their full history, but there is no way to put into words the myriad ways in which they are inextricably twined around and through each other. Ben has as many cherished memories of holding Rey while she slept as a child as he does memories of the passion between them as adults, and Luke, a man rarely taken to passion or even obvious outward emotion himself, could never hope to understand how inescapable that draw to each other is. “But she is not a child anymore,” Luke goes on. “She is about ready to throw her career out the window for you and while, as your attorney, I am still inclined to let her for the sake of your case, as her mentor, I would ask you to really examine what it is you’re doing.” He pauses for a breath, going on and proving he honestly does not understand Ben at all. “And if you truly love her -”_

_“Do not presume to question whether or not I love her,” Ben cuts in over him, voice raised. “Rey is the most important thing to me, that’s why I want her left out of this as much as possible.”_

 

_“Then let her go,” Luke insists, rising to Ben’s challenge with his own louder voice. “You have that power, cut her loose, she’s already far too deep in.”_

_“I made a promise to her that I wouldn’t leave her again, and I won’t.” He’s done disappointing Rey, so long as he has the power to keep it from happening. Walking away was never easy, but it isn’t even a choice now, not with how deep both of them are, and it’s almost laughable how much Luke is blind to the depth of Ben’s own feelings if he thinks Ben could leave her now. “Not unless she asks me to. You’ll have to get that order from her before I follow it.”_

_“If she believed you didn’t love her anymore, she would.” Luke’s changed tack, open palm almost reaching out to Ben across the table like he’s beseeching. “She’d be better off.”_

_“We have been there before,” Ben says, uncomfortably reminded of the night he’d tried to leave her for her own good and come back to find a mess of a woman that they’d had to both work hard to piece back together. “It’s not my story to tell, but believe me, she would not be better off. You don’t get to decide what Rey and my relationship is, that’s ours.” He shifts, licking his lips in a nervous gesture that Ben had thought was left behind years ago. “We are trying - we_ were _trying to behave like adults about this, and I’m not making any decisions about that without her input.”_

_“You don’t deserve her,” Luke sighs after a few seconds of quiet._

_Ben gives in to the tug at the corner of his mouth, a bitter little half-smirk. “No one knows that better than me.”_

_Luke watches his face with enough intensity that Ben wants to squirm and snap at him, so he just folds his arms tighter across his chest instead. It wouldn’t do to show that kind of weakness, and it would sting to give Luke the satisfaction of having unnerved him._

_“Well,” he says finally, in an unexpectedly softened tone of voice. “Perhaps she’s the only one who ever really stood a chance of saving you.”_

_“She’s certainly got the best track record so far.” Ben is beyond saving, of course, but that’s the wonderful thing about Rey - she doesn’t see it. She just sees that the future is open and unknowable. While Ben has to struggle to keep his eyes from always turning backward to the tarpits of his past, Rey is the constant pull forward and she’s so strong, so sure, that Ben even believes it some days - that he can save himself after all._

 

_“I’ll say no more on the matter. Just this one last thing.” Luke meets his eye and waits for Ben to nod his attention, taking a fortifying breath to go on. “If this trial doesn’t go our way, if I can’t get you out of 25 to life...talk to her. About waiting. And the life she would lead. Think about what you want for her.”_

_That’s the kind of realistic pessimism Ben can at least respect, and it gives him pause. Not because he hasn’t thought of it, but because he’s thought on it too much, and it’s never been something Rey seemed even remotely open to talking about. Her dreams can’t fit into his bleak reality, but the option to talk about this with his uncle sits heavy in his chest. He could never, with his own parents, or the living one at least. They clearly didn’t think ahead in their own marriage, and Ben honestly doesn’t have it in him to discuss anything as precious as what he has with rey with his mother. But with Luke...maybe. He was Rey’s most favored teacher, after all. He might be able to provide insight if nothing else._

_“I need you, uh, just for a moment, pretend I’m not - That I’m just your nephew.” Ben breaks off, uncertain, and rubs his palms across his pants as they’ve gone suddenly a bit clammy, and places them on the table so he can’t fidget. He wants to be rational about this, ask and not hang on Luke’s answer, but it comes out desperate anyway, the anxiety that’s been sitting at the back of his mind flooding his speech so he sounds exactly like the lost kid he doesn’t want to be.  “What can I say to her? She wants...a life, a family, these things I can’t give her. And I don’t… I don’t know what to do.”_

 

_Luke takes his time about responding. When Ben looks up from where he’d been avoiding Luke’s eyes by staring at his own knees, it’s like looking into a portal to the past. Behind the slightly embittered old man is the uncle he once knew, who had greeted him with open arms once upon a time, trying to be the anchor Ben had never managed to tether himself to. His whole demeanor has changed, and it must be out of pity, but he slowly sets down the papers he’s been fiddling with and lays his hand hesitantly on top of Ben’s, like he might pull away or snap at the offered gesture of solidarity. Ben keeps his hand where it is out of a mix of spite and hope._

_“All you can do,” Luke starts when Ben’s begun to think he won’t respond verbally at all, “is make sure she knows exactly what it is she is signing up for. Especially if she wants a family. You shouldn’t start a family if you’re not ready or equipped for that commitment. And so many have failed at it with neither of them in prison. With even the best of intentions, sometimes we...fail.”_

 

_If Luke’s phrasing hadn’t let him know this is his uncle’s way of acknowledging the shortcomings of Ben’s own family, his pointed look would do it. There’s more laid out across the table between them than his uncertain future._

_“I know,” he says, as close to acceptance as he can muster in response to Luke not only defending him in court but doing him the favor of being honest with him. Ben can at least return that favor. “I’m not. Ready. But she won’t listen, and I’ve already taken so much from her. If it comes to it, will you help me? I know Rey thinks we can make it, but I’m not - I don’t have the strength to do it. I love her, but there’s some things…” He ends his sad little speech with a helpless shrug, eyes on the table in front of him._

_“I will do whatever I can to spare her pain,” Luke promises. “That’s our common ground.”_

_“Yes.” It’s solid ground, too, the only sacred thing left in Ben’s life._

_At his agreement, Luke pulls another folded paper from his briefcase and hands the single sheet to Ben. “She gave me this for you.” Ben takes it, overeager, and Luke finds another paper to occupy himself with. “Read it, answer it. And then we will talk about what charges they’re going to bring up and what you’ll be pleading.”_

_It’s typewritten, probably in deference to the fact Ben’s insisted on pretending he and Rey aren’t as involved as they are. Though he hasn’t had occasion to see Rey’s handwriting much since he was helping her practice letters as a child, Ben sort of wishes this was in her own writing, a futile longing for an inconsequential piece of her._

 

My love,

I don’t remember when I last wrote an actual real letter, must’ve been ages. I don’t really have much to tell you. Uncle says you’re very adamant on the whole taking a stand thing so I won’t try and fight you on it. At least not here.

All I really want is to hold you, to have you here right now. I miss your bed and I miss sleeping beside you in it. I miss everything. You’ll think I’m silly but I took your shit out of baby before I had to give it away and I look like I did on laundry day every night. I miss your hands on me and I’m furious that I’m starting to forget just exactly how they feel like, what you feel like.

I hope you find a way to keep this letter close. And know that I think about you every second and I want you and love you and want you, want you here so much.

For as long as we have.

Your R

 

_He reads it over twice, in rapid succession, just in case he managed to skip over something important the first time, and Ben’s attention catches on her odd phrasing halfway through. She must be saying she got his things out of the car before the authorities got a hold of it, but it takes a moment for the second half of that sentence to click. Laundry day. She’d worn his shirts around on laundry day, citing his greater amount of spare clothing when she’d packed light. Rey is sleeping in his clothes, and Ben takes a breath to steady the way a rush of both tenderness and heat rolls over him._

_“Do you have, uh, a pen?” he asks, distracted. “Paper?”_

_Luke easily produces both from his briefcase, hardly pausing in his examination of the contents a a folder, combing through it to leave Ben his privacy. His writing doesn’t need to be disguised, but Ben fumbles with the pen for a moment, almost starting and then stopping a couple times before he can even figure out how to address it._

 

_My R,_

_I don’t think I have ever written a letter, so I’m sorry it probably won’t be very satisfying. There’s nothing that could really stand in for being able to be with you, of course. But it is good to hear you don’t have much to tell, because it means you’re safe and well._

_If you are silly, then I’m just as bad. It’s hard to sleep without you anymore. I miss you much more than I miss my bed. If you can’t remember my hands, I will be happy to remind you at the earliest possible moment. They feel empty without you. That’s the worst part of all of this, but I hope you can at least be proud of what we did together. I will never regret that._

_Paper isn’t hard to hold onto, so I’ll have at least this much of you with me, I promise. I would think of you anyway. You’re all I think about._

_I love you. I’m so sorry I’ve had to leave you again, but I promise I never wanted to. Tell yourself again, I love you. Every day if you have to. It will always be true._

_Love, B_

 

_It doesn’t feel like enough. They’ve had weeks wrapped up in each other, living in each other’s pockets, and a handful of lines on paper is what they’re reduced to. Ben reads over his own writing, wonders if there’s a goodbye he doesn’t want to say hidden somewhere in the words, or if it’s only because of the discussion so recently had with his uncle. Ben’s ready to work to preserve what they had, but even he can’t fight his way out of the pressures of reality. It stings, but he has to swallow the idea that one day, maybe not that far down the road, all their declarations and hard work won’t amount to enough. He’ll have to let her go if Rey can’t live the life of a woman in love with a convicted felon._

 

_He puts aside that thought for later dwelling, knowing he won’t be able to help himself from turning it over and over in his head while he’s stuck not sleeping on the undersized bunk in holding. Instead, he folds the paper into a square and hands it to Luke, who takes it without even a hint of curiosity for its contents. It’s traded for a much more official-looking sheet, and when Luke starts reading off of it, it’s a list of charges, most of them predictable. Intimidating a victim, possession of a deadly weapon, first degree murder, extortion, racketeering, and then the sale of controlled substance and trafficking, which are both preposterous._

_Luke agrees, noting as well that the charges for his crimes in Chicago will likely be thrown out due to lack of evidence solely because of the passage of time between then and now. The laundry list of crimes is extensive enough, and Ben can read the possible sentencing beside each one. The least heinous are still five to ten years, the majority a term of twenty five to life._

_“So How do we plead,” Luke says, not a question, really, but a lead in. “I haven’t had a chance to look over all of the evidence in detail yet, but I can already tell you there is little to no evidence for this and only circumstantial evidence for these.” He taps the paper to indicate each alleged crime in question, and Ben lets go of some tension he hadn’t been aware of when they’re all the ones with the heaviest punishment attached. “So, not guilty on those.”_

 

_“I think it would be quicker if you told me what I should be pleading guilty for,” Ben mutters, trying to memorize the list and failing. “There’s lenience if you do that, right? The things we can’t fight anyway.”_

_“Exactly,” Luke says. “You’ll plead guilty to the weapon possession, intimidation, extortion, and racketeering. Be repentant. The rest rides on the story of the children and on your change of heart.”_

_“Does it help that I am?” he asks quietly, though it’s really the crimes he’s trying to deny that eat away at him the most. The possession and everything else have solid proof that they can’t fight, only mitigate, but Ben is sure he can call up the regret he’d spilled to Rey. “I didn’t...like what I did. I didn’t take pride in it. It was just a job that I was good at.”_

_The surprise on Luke’s face is more insulting than Ben would have predicted, but he masks it quickly enough, acknowledging Ben’s admission of guilt. “That does help. If you plead guilty for what we’ve agreed, and I’ll be honest, even if you plead not guilty for everything, I don’t think they’ll allow for bail. Be prepared for that.”_

 

_“I shouldn’t expect any different,” Ben says with a nod of his head. It would be beyond wishful thinking to hope any judge would release one of the First Order’s top enforcers and most highly paid members for any amount of bail money._

_“I will do my best to let you see her again, discreetly,” Luke offers. “If that happens.”_

_It’s an entirely charitable notion, especially from a man who so recently expressed his displeasure with the idea of Ben and Rey being involved at all. So he takes it for the olive branch it is and reminds himself to continue being on his best behavior with Luke in repayment._

_“Generally,” he says with a touch of humorless irony, “my luck dictates I won’t be making bail. So thank you in advance.”_

_“You’re welcome,” Luke says, genuinely warm for a moment before he slips into a more businesslike tone. “Now, for the arraignment. I do the talking, you listen. When they lay the charges out, you say guilty or not guilty. That is the only time you will speak unless directly addressed by the judge or myself. Understood?”_

_“Understood.” The order rankles, instinctively making Ben want to push back and disobey just to prove he can, but Luke did just make him a promise to help him see Rey. He’d only moments ago made the commitment to stick to his best behavior, so Ben gives his one word response and behaves._

 

_He’s cooperative with the officers who take him out of the room when it comes time for Luke to leave, doesn’t give them an excuse to shove him around more than necessary. Most of the bruises from his initial welcoming party have faded, his black eye now a sick yellow, while his split lip has had trouble healing with how he can’t seem to stop pushing his tongue against it and reopening the tiny wound. Under his clothing is a slightly different story, but those bruises are easy to hide and easier to ignore until he’s trying to find sleep._

_He does, eventually, and wakes in the morning to go to his arraignment. The judge is a tall, older woman with a gentle face and sharp eyes, red hair cut sensibly short. Standing in one of his more casual suits, Ben tries to look trustworthy and sympathetic under her watchful eye. The reading of his charges is as uneventful as Luke could have hoped, and Ben responds as he’s been told. There will be evidentiary hearings for the charges he’s pled guilty for, but the big name crimes - the murder and trafficking - will go to a proper trial now that the motion to dismiss is a forgotten fantasy. The list of additional crimes being charged is still a little staggering, and despite his best efforts, Ben gets a look of disapproval from the judge that shoots him right back to being ten years old._

_As expected, he doesn’t make bail. If he had, it would have been an astronomical number, but the only argument Luke could make for why the notorious Kylo Ren wouldn’t flee the moment the opportunity arose is one that Ben won’t allow. It’s doubtful such a pragmatic judge would accept ‘true love’ as a sound argument anyway. She seems a fair sort, all told, but it’s anyone’s guess which way a fair trial will lean. By the end of it, Ben is a tangled knot of conflicting emotions, anxiety and optimism at war with an overwhelming sense of resignation._

 

_Luke leads him off to a side room designated for lawyers and clients when it’s over, a tiny space for him to essentially wait around until a pair of officers come to collect him. It will be his last night spent in holding, a transfer to an actual prison set for the following day._

_“Ben,” Luke starts, walking in ahead of him and holding the door for him. “I’m sorry.”_

_Ben just shakes his head dismissively, moving to lean against the small table in the center of the room. “It was stupid to think I’d be getting anything else.”_

_“Still. Rey won’t be pleased, I imagine.” It’s a little troubling that Rey is such an easy tool to sway Ben’s opinion, but he supposes that’s the price of admitting how much her safety and happiness meant to him. “But there’s a different matter,” Luke goes on. “Your mother.”_

_Ben heaves what might be a sigh, if it were less violent. Just from Luke’s tone of voice, he can tell she’s here, in this building, probably waiting for some signal to come give Ben a piece of her mind._

_“She’s here, isn’t she?” he asks simply, and Luke confirms his suspicion that she’s waiting outside. “Dunno what the hell she’s waiting for,” Ben says, acerbic and nervous for reasons he doesn’t want to examine. “It’s not like I’m going to welcome her in here.”_

 

_“She wants to know if you would see her,” Luke explains gently. “She doesn’t want to force this on you.” That’s a strange notion if Ben’s ever heard one. His mother had never been the kind to pull a punch, and he can’t imagine her doing so now._

_“I said I won’t turn her away.” Luke does that thing he’d done when Ben was young, where he doesn’t offer input one way or the other. It makes Ben just as uncomfortable now as it did then, pressure on the need to make a decision until Ben snaps, “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”_

_Luke steps out without another word, and Ben has long enough to start fidgeting before he comes back in with a woman in tow. It can’t be Leia, but it couldn’t be anyone else either. She looks much older, tired, with fully grey hair and a tentative beginning of a smile on her face. Her expression flashes through multiple emotions, and Ben can only imagine his own face is doing similar acrobatics. While she is trying to age up the picture of a pre-teen boy she hasn’t seen in so many years, Ben is trying to reconcile the woman he’d known as his mother with this one before him._

 

_“Ben,” she says simply._

_“Mother.” She’s so much smaller than him now, shorter even than Rey and it’s that thought that sticks and replays. Ben projects as much impassivity as he can, possibly doing a bad job of it. There’s plenty of anger for the woman who abandoned him, as well as the urge to stoop and try to see her from the point of view of a ten year old. Perhaps he’d recognize her better that way. She seems diminished and Ben would like to pretend he didn’t miss her, but he did, for years, and Leia Organa hardly looks like the strong, acerbic mother he remembered. It’s almost an insult, it’s so disappointing._

_“You grew up so much,” Leia says finally, voice a bit shaky and eyes a touch glassy, but she is not crying._

_“Twenty years will do that,” Ben says inanely. “I remember you being taller.”_

_“You know, back then I was.” Leia smiles at that, and Ben almost vindictively wishes she wouldn’t. The step she takes toward him is equally unwanted, as is the twitch of her hand like she means to reach for him. “The whole flight over, I...I tried to figure out what I was going to say to you and nothing seemed right. Except. I ‘m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry, Ben, I don’t know how to bear it.”_

 

_It’s nothing that Ben expected, his mother apologizing with no need for his own apology, no yelling or accusations. It throws him so hard off course that Ben is lost for words for a few moments, floundering in the face of it. “You’re -” His voice comes out scraped and he doesn’t even know where that sentences was going anyway, and it only serves to make him angry, so Ben latches onto that like a defense. “You’re a bit late, but the sentiment is nice, I suppose. Why are you here?” he sneers, totally aware of how unpleasant he’s being in the face of an open apology he’d wanted and feared and never believed he would get._

_“To see my son,” she answers simply._

_“Well, you’ve seen me,” he snaps. It feels like his ties have been cut, the interaction he was expecting pulled out from under him, and Ben finds he can’t gracefully deal with a mother who appears to be completely devoid of resentment._

_“I suppose I deserve that,” she says, taking a step back and fiddling with her jacket. Some part of him breathes relief at the renewed space between them, but another, one that is much older and disused, almost wants to cry out and drag himself to her. “I don’t want to cause you any more pain. But if there’s anything I can do...outside of here, out of your sight, I want to do it.”_

 

_Ben’s response to his mother is nowhere near as simple as when he’d been confronted with Luke. Her own subdued demeanor isn’t helping, either. He’d always thought of her as larger than life, commanding and uncompromising, too headstrong for his father, too exasperated with Ben. She’d been the one to send him away, and Ben hadn’t believed Luke when he said she tried to get him back, not even when she’d said it herself in the couple of letters he’d received. Not until this moment._

_He’d gone through his own search, when he’d tried to come back for Rey, and the enraged frustration of a teenage boy must’ve been nothing in comparison to the hell Leia Organa could have raised if she put her mind to it. So why the hell wouldn’t she have been able to get to him? Her own son, no lack of relation or being technically underage getting in the way like it did for him. It’s a question he doesn’t want to pick at, because the answer might be that she did give it her best shot, and Ben isn’t sure he’s ready to forgive her for the hell created from his lack of childhood. Even more tricky is whether or not he could bring himself to apologize for his part in it. That would mean forgiveness and starting over and looking this woman in the eye and thinking ‘Mom’. It’s not something Ben can do, not now anyway, not with all the other piles of emotion and anxiety he has to deal with._

 

_“You should ask your brother if there’s anything you can do for me,” he says finally, before addressing Luke. “I can’t do this.”_

_Luke shrugs helplessly, and from the looks on his and Leia’s faces, they don’t get it at all, that he needs time. There’s been plenty of waiting all around, Ben waited for years for someone to come for him, his mother can wait a little longer. If she wants to give him something, that’s what she can give him - the peace of mind that he can choose to discuss things with her when his life isn’t on the line._

_“Leia, it might be best if -”_

_“I’ll go,” she says, cutting her brother off. “Just -” And she does take that step toward Ben, enough in the tiny room to bring her close enough to reach for Ben’s hand. Absolutely everything he can spare for her is in the fact he doesn’t pull away, but lets her take his hand in hers. “I fought for you. I wanted you. I never, not for one day, stopped thinking about you.” It’s a curious thing clogging up his throat, making it impossible to speak. “I love you, Ben. And I am sorry I wasn’t there and that I couldn’t stop what your life became. I’m so sorry.”_

_“Why are - Why aren’t you mad?” He wishes she would stop apologizing already. He’s already been cheated out of the argument he’d written and rewritten in his head dozens of times over the years, vitriol and blame traded in for this desperately sad attempt to make peace. “You were so… You always… What_ happened _to you?” he finally chokes out, staring at Leia’s fingers so tentatively holding onto his. Her hands are wrinkled, the skin very thin over her knuckles, and he notes it with distant confusion._

 

_“I spent twenty years without my son.” There’s tears in her voice as well as her eyes, and Ben remembers now, why he can’t stand seeing women cry. It had always been terrifying when she’d done it. “Not knowing where you were, if you were alright, if you were even alive. If someone was kind to you, hugged you when you were sad, nursed you when you were sick, kissed you, when you were alone…”_

_“Of course not.” He cuts her off, belatedly stopping an unproductive rambling. It only serves as a reminder of the things he barely remembered ever having, just enough to resent the lack of it. “I wasn’t one of the cute kids, I grew up, I didn’t need any of that.”_

_Leia nods, less like he’s right and more like she doesn’t want to fight him, and Ben could scream with the frustration of watching her continuously back down. It’s as unnerving as it is pathetic. No wonder she wasn’t able to get him back._

_“You were always a strong boy. In ways you didn’t understand.” She squeezes his hand along with that cryptic statement, and then lets go. “It was really good to see you. I will do whatever I can to help get you out of this. And you won’t see me again if that’s what you want. I just needed to see you once. A part…” She pauses, struggling, and Ben has a moment of panic that she really will start crying, until she starts up again. “Ben, a part of me was missing all these years. Maybe if you ever have children, you’ll understand. Thank you for letting me see you.”_

 

_“You don’t -” It’s stupid, he should just let her keep going when Leia turns to leave, but Ben can’t stop himself until he’s already started speaking. So he changes tack instead. “If you want to know what happened to me, I can’t do that. With you. But Rey knows it. Luke, tell her...I don’t mind.” His mother is already half turned toward the door, and Ben isn’t quite facing her anymore, but he makes it clear his words are directed at her. “I lost somebody for a while too, only thing is, I found her again. I guess...you’re welcome. Don’t...don’t come see me while the trial’s going.”_

_“Of course.” Even out of the corner of his eye, Ben can see the rejection hurts. It’s not something he can give her, not with so much at stake. He’s already in a constant state of anxiety, and attempting to heal a twenty-year-old wound and navigate reconciliation with his mother at the same time would break him. He’ll have plenty of time between now and the beginning of the trial to work out how he wants to deal with her, now that she knows how to find him and apparently really wanted to do so. His request technically wouldn’t keep her from seeing him while he’s in prison awaiting trial, but he doesn’t know if Leia will take advantage of that technicality._

_It’s something of a test, to find out which version of her is true. The mother he remembers would have taken the loophole and run with it, but this version of her may not. Whatever she does, Ben will learn something from it, and he’s still off-balance enough that he doesn’t feel petty treating her to a test she doesn’t even know exists._

_“Good luck, Ben,” she says from the door. She’s only in his peripheral vision, a small, grey-haired woman in comfortable clothes, and Ben resists the foolish urge to get a better look at her as she’s walking out, just in case._

 

_If she means it, and Leia genuinely wants to try again with her son, he should have plenty of time. There’s another test in that. It’s been a lifetime since he’s seen her, and it should be nothing for her to wait until his fate has been decided before dredging up old scars. Luke doesn’t exactly look disapproving when he comes back, but he doesn’t look pleased either. Honestly, it could have gone astronomically worse, and Ben is pretty sure Luke knows that._

_He sees Ben out the door, handcuffed and escorted into the back of a police vehicle to be brought back to the station. It’s his last night in holding, now that they’ve decided he won’t be making bail. He’ll be transferred to Sing Sing in the morning, and he lets the verbal jabs roll off his back. Ben isn't afforded the luxury of a media outlet, but he knows the news about his arrest has painted him in the worst possible light. It's not these idiots' fault they don't know any better, and really, what they think doesn't matter._

_The bunk in his cell is hardly familiar, but it’s better than standing around uselessly. Ben lays down almost as soon as he’s locked inside, turning his back on the door. He waits until the sounds of people moving outside have returned to the usual unhurried shuffle before sneaking his fingers into his waistband. It’s a crude hiding place, but Rey’s letter fits along the elastic band of his underwear if he folds it enough times, and doesn’t create a suspicious bump or make any crinkling noises when he’s patted down._

_He doesn’t need to read the words, already having memorized them fairly well, and he can’t pretend the typeface has any sentimental value, so he doesn’t bother unfolding it, just holds the tiny square of paper between his fingers. He wishes he could talk to Rey about everything that happened today. It had become so familiar, having her there at the end of every day to discuss work, food, the stupid things on television, the stupider things seen on the streets._

 

_A piece of paper is a poor substitute for having Rey there with him, but it’s something. Perhaps they’ll think him crazy, whenever he gets to the actual prison and has a cellmate to contend with, but it won’t stop him from pulling out his paper talisman and talking to it like Rey will somehow hear him._

_“I saw my mother today,” he mutters, too quiet for anyone else to hear, as he glares down at the little square in his hand. He tells her about it, and about how the judge seemed stern but fair, how the prosecution’s lawyer had been wearing the most god awful tie, how much he’d wanted to tell them all to go fuck themselves - he’d done his best with what he was given. He stops at some point, not because he’s tired or run out of things to say, but because it’s disheartening. He’s not going to get a response, none of Rey’s conflicted disapproval or surprised laughter or more than welcome distractions. Still, as long as he can keep it up, it’s nice to pretend. He tucks the paper back against his hip, pressed tight to his skin where it won’t get lost, and forces himself to sleep. It won’t come easy, but it makes the guards nervous when he tries to exercise late at night, and Ben is trying to be on his best behavior, so he lays with his eyes closed until finally, some time in the night, he’s asleep._

 

***

 

One of the worst things about the whole arraignment procedure, apart from the entire arraignment procedure, was the fact that Rey had to stay away and out of all of it. When Luke called to tell her that bail was denied and the charges he pled guilty to could already as well add up to life in prison, she had to sit down and couldn’t get up for a while. From then on out, it was just Rey biting her nails, waiting the week she felt she had to until she could tentatively ask around the subject of Ben Solo at the office with Poe. He gave her the same tried line of her needing to keep a level head, the same warning glare he’d given her back when she first brought it up, that Ben might not be as horrible as he was supposed to be. But she kept insinuating that she would be able to get more intel out of him, that he’d told her more than he had told anybody.

 

“Rey, you got him his lawyer,” Poe says at the end of that talk, eyebrow raised. “Don’t you think you did your part in trying to help him?”

“I’m just trying to do my job,” she says evenly. “To get justice. I was there, Poe, I met Hux and I _lived_ with Ben, with Kylo. I know how it all happened and I don’t want Hux to get away with everything just because he will say anything to save his own skin.”

“Justice, huh?” Poe asks her from beneath a furrowed brow, but eventually he nods his consent and scribbles something on a form. “Report everything of interest back to prosecution.”

“Copy,” Rey says but her mind is already on the way to prison to see Ben again. On the highway, it’s the closest she’s ever come to her boyfriend’s disregard of traffic laws so far.

 

It’s an hour and a half drive up to Sing Sing in the midday traffic and on the way there Rey half thinks she’s going to a retreat. Autumn is in its last throes and the sun is shining golden and pretty in the sky, completely at odds with how she feels. The leaves still look like they had back then around Ben’s safe house and she wants nothing more but to go back there and freeze that weekend in time to live in it forever. But it’s nothing but a dream. Harsh reality is her driving through the gates of the prison with her credential, getting a run down of the security measures while someone apparently gets set into motion to fetch Ben from his cell and get him to the visitors room. Rey hopes for something like his holding cell, something where no one sees, where she can kiss him, like she’s longing to. But instead, she’s lead into a room cut in two by a wall and windows. Just like the movies. And she’s not gonna even get close to kissing him today.

 

Her side of the room, beyond the window, has seven little booths, separated by what looks like dry wall into cubicles and thick, soundproof glass, each equipped with telephones to connect the world of free men to those in confinement. The one to the far right is assigned to Rey and she thanks her luck for that small mercy. Because to her one side there is an actual wall and the next two cubicles are empty at present. There are two more occupied, one by a scruffy-looking older man and one by a woman who must be around forty but doesn’t dress like it. Both of them seem pretty engaged in their conversations, so Rey relaxes slightly. They’re probably not snooping or spying at her. She really does not want to be looking over her shoulder or censor her words or hide the mindless smile that spreads across her cheek when Ben is led in and smiles back at her, like she’s maybe made of stardust. He settles in, his eyes never leaving his and they pick up the phone simultaneously, both grinning as they do, despite all of it.

 

“Hey,” she says and smiles still.

“Hey,” he replies and although he looks very happy to see her, his posture is still somewhat hunched and his eyes dart away every so often like he is still very much alert to his side of the border.

“So,” Rey starts, unsure of what of the million things she wants to say to him to say first. “Maybe six months to trial and no bail.”

“No judge in their right mind was going to let me out on bail.” Ben waves his hand and shrugs. “Seems like she’s fair enough though. Luke’s optimistic.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you sooner,” Rey says. “I needed some water down the river. Convinced Poe that you still might have some things to share with me. So I can come by from time to time.”

“That’s good news at least,” he smiles and Rey hates that window between them more than anything. She wants it gone, she wants to sit on his lap and kiss his face and be free of everything else.

“I’ve gotta put a little effort into getting my story straight but it’s worth it,” she says. “Will you be okay in here?”

 

“No worse than dealing with the First Order,” he says lightly. “How are you doing?”

“Alright,” she says but it’s not really true, is it? “Miserable, actually. You?”

“Can’t say I’m doing much better,” he says and the last upward twitch of his lips falters. He looks tired like this. “The food’s awful.” In a way that suggests he can’t really help it, he fidgets with the cord of the phone and when he speaks next it’s low and quiet, private. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” she says. “I can’t...really sleep.”

“Yeah, I’m…” he sighs. “Me neither.”

“You look tired,” she says with worry and affection weighing down every word. “And you’re all..scruffy.”

Ben touches his face then and looks a little surprised, like he hadn’t even noticed that he’s grown facial hair over the time. “Yeah, I guess I kind of forgot to shave.”

“I like it,” she grins, looking at the mustache he sports and the chin beard, everything else is just a bit of patchy stubble. “But you still can’t grow a proper beard.”

 

“Yes I can. You’ll see,” he snaps defensively, so irked, she wants to laugh. “Now I’m gonna keep not shaving.”

“We’ll see how long you keep that up if it gets too wild to kiss you,” she grins but that quickly dies on her face, because actual kissing might be a ways away yet. Maybe he’ll grow a full beard yet until she gets the chance to do that.

“Then I’ll shave it off when I’m allowed to kiss you again,” he says and smiles so reassuringly she knows it’s for her sake more than his. The longing for him hits her like a brick to the chest and she has to deliberately breathe through it so as to not squirm in her seat. It takes a long moment until she has somewhat of a grip on herself again.

 

“Have you recovered a bit from seeing your mother?” It’s a blatant change of subject but everything else would’ve been dangerous for her composure.

“Recovered might be a strong word,” he says, easily picking up this new thread of conversation. “I’m mostly pretending it didn’t happen. Not that that’s terribly effective.”

“I had dinner with her,” Rey says and even though she knows Ben had practically asked it of her, she still feels like he might have a problem with it after all.

He only nods at first, conflict written on his face. “How did it go?”

“She... she cried,” she answers truthfully but it doesn’t come easy, much as the memory of watching the woman silently weep while Rey told her the story of all the years she’d missed. “She wanted to know every detail.”

“Still not sure she deserved all that...” he trails off, picking at his own fingers in visible discomfort. “I thought she’d be...different. She wasn’t supposed to be sorry, I didn’t think - I was expecting something more like Luke’s reaction. I don’t know how she isn’t angry. She was never this easy on me when I was young.”

“She has missed you like a limb all these years, I think,” Rey says, trying to get through to him what she means. “I think being angry comes hard after all that time. She loves you and she just got you back and she might lose you again. I know how that feels. You just feel...empty and longing and sad and hopeful all at the same time. It’s pretty overwhelming.”

“If it helps you, go ahead and keep seeing her,” he says, picking through her little speech to be able to see her and his own mother as sort of kindred spirits by the looks of it. He still obviously can’t take much more of hearing about Leia. “If you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about her anymore, though. I’m sorry, I can’t,” he says and looks at his hands.

“Okay. We don’t have much time anyway,” she nods and puts her hand on the glass, she wants to give him everything, so she can give him this easily, even if it would probably be better for him to start dealing with his past - but then again, he might have a lot of time yet to think about all of it. “I would pay hard cash to touch you right now.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m happy to see you, but this-” He matches his hand on hers, looks her up and down. “This isn’t fair.”

“I never liked it when people called me sweetheart,” she says and doesn’t really know why, maybe just to keep his mind from going dark. “But when you do, I just want to hear it again.”

“Yeah, well, turnabout's fair play,” he says and curls his fingers on the pane in a way she can almost feel on her palm. “I’ve always hated the nickname ‘Benny’ from anyone but you.”

“Oh, good,” she snorts, beside herself. “After Luke said that to you, I thought you’d always just humored me.”

“Maybe a little bit,” he hums thoughtfully. “You know you get special privileges though.”

 

Rey wants nothing more than to linger and talk more about all the special privileges she gets from him but they’re on a clock, so she can’t. She still has things they need to talk about. “Luke thinks they might...they might try you in Florida as well once this is over.”

“That’s...not great news,” he says, the moment irreversibly gone as his hand falls to the counter. As was predictable because he knows what it means too. “Does he think they’ll push for the max?”

“I don’t know,” she says and the sob forming in the back of her throat catches her off guard and it’s hard to swallow back down.

Ben tries to reach out to physically comfort her but his hand bumps against the glass with a muted thud. Puzzled first, then disheartened, he clenches it into a fist after a second of disorientation, dropping it after in resignation. “Luke’s a great lawyer, it won’t come to that. If my grandfather hadn’t… Luke would’ve kept him in good hands, he knows what he’s doing.”

“If they even so much as allude to death penalty, I’m gonna take the stand.” It’s not a question at this point and she puts enough resolve into her gaze and words that he should understand that.

“Babe, please,” he argues immediately. “It’s not gonna change much of the story anyway.”

“No. No, they can’t kill you.” She shakes her head with vigor. “You did a good thing, that has to count for something.”

“It will. And I can’t stop you, but - I really need you to be safe,” he says, for the hundredth time. “I can’t live with myself if you aren’t, and this place, it’s not safe.”

“I’m not going to jail. I told you,” she says and hopes it’s true.

“You lied to the federal government, Rey,” he says with his head tilted and his hands in fists on the table. “You aided and abetted as far as the prosecution is concerned, and you helped me escape arrest. Those are all things they can try you for.”

“Precisely, they can _try_ . I got a good lawyer,” she says and then pauses when his words register a lot later than he’s said them. _This place, it’s not safe_. “How is it going in here? Apart from the food, I mean.”

“I’ve had a couple people not so pleased to see my face, but we, ah, worked it out,” he shrugs and glances to make sure the guards aren’t listening too closely. “Anybody involved with the First Order isn’t my best friend right now, but I can handle a couple thugs.”

“Be careful, don’t engage them,” Rey warns because she is well aware that infighting in prisons can get very, very ugly. Especially if there is bad blood from the get go.

“Oh, I know. Best behavior,” he nods. “Any time they come after me, there shouldn’t be any witnesses, I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay,” she says and she’s not really done nor pleased in the slightest but the time is running out, so she can’t discuss this in the detail she’d like. “Is there anything I can do? Get your suit cleaned at a fancy place for court? Bake a cake with dynamite in it?”

 

He flashes her a crooked grin and then shakes his head and bites his lip for a second. “I really want to kiss you right now. Just...very much.” She wants to tear the whole fricking room down to get to him. “No, I don’t have a favorite dry cleaner’s. And you should know I’m more of a metal file kind of guy.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind,” she quips past the agony of not getting to touch him. “Hard cash, I’d pay hard cash. I miss you, like crazy.”

“Me too,” Ben hums. “Love you like crazy too.”

“Prison is making you sappy, Benny-boy,” she says, trying to make light of it, even if she has to go. She can feel the clock practically yanking at her. Their hour is up.

“I think being away from you is doing that, sweetheart,” he says and once again the endearment courses like a shiver down her spine. She wants him so much it’s a little bit ridiculous.

 

“Okay, I’m gonna go now before they have to drag me away kicking and screaming,” she breathes and rises slow from reluctance. Ben leans back in his seat, apparently finding some guard to make eye contact with but he leans back in, bringing the phone to his lips and Rey stops in her tracks to listen what else he has to say.

“You gonna tell me you love me too?” It hardly carries but she understood.

“I love you,” she mouths without a hint of hesitation but completely soundless and puts her free hand flat on the glass one last time. Ben nods and stands too, pressing his palm to his mouth in a kiss and then taps it against the window pane so the kiss is almost hers. Rey keeps her eyes on him until he is led away and the world seems a little bit smaller as soon as the heavily reinforced door closes behind him.

 

Rey hardly sees the room anymore as she walks out, trying to keep a straight face past the guard that lets her out into the hall and holds onto the wall precisely until the moment the door is opened behind her again and the old young-dressed woman emerges, shooting her a sympathetic smile.

“It never gets any easier,” she says, “leaving them here, does it?”

“We’re not…” Rey starts but why lie? She’ll never see this woman again and she doubts she follows the news. “This was the first visit.”

“You’re in for a fantastic ride, trust me, Girly,” the woman says. “It will kill you a little bit more every damn time.”

 

Those words ring in Rey’s ear the entire ride home. Like a hurricane, an endless spiral of imaginary scenes. She can see her life come together, see her future shape into a continuous string of prison visits and locked doors, of longing for touch and wishing for more. It’s desolating but it could as well be everything life still has in store for her. There’s a little voice at the back of her head when she’s finally home, telling her to get up and run. To disentangle herself from Ben and start over. But that’s an unbidden, horrible thought if she ever had one. She’ll never do that, will never abandon him, she couldn’t if she tried.

 

Luke calls but has nothing new for her, Poe calls and she tells him some more about Hux, about the company he kept in his penthouse and that she could probably pick out some of his girls from a line-up if they were to be rounded up. They should be able to testify for the prosecution about what kind of person Hux is exactly. Finn calls, just to hear how she’s doing and she lies through her teeth. When she gets too restless, she takes out Ben’s letter and reads it again and again, running her fingertips over the squiggly lines.

 

_Tell yourself again, I love you. Every day if you have to. It will always be true._

 

She whispers the words to herself, like he said and tries to imagine him in a bleak cell, without her and for the first time she thinks of the life he’s facing. Selfish as she was, she’d always just thought about what she loses if he spends his life behind bars. But what about him? Yes, she’ll face visitation and the man she loves not sharing her life but he will be in jail. And of course, he deserves some of that because he killed people and because he helped the First Order business. Still. He tried so hard to be better, to make things right. Doesn’t he deserve something for that? Some kind of hope? Then again, maybe he deserves just what he gets, half a life, no freedom, just small, little glimpses of happiness. If that’s the case, Rey wants to be all those glimpses. If Ben Solo only gets half a life from now on, she’ll be the light of it, she’ll make it worth even this way.

 

This resolve is what gets her through her days, what gets her out of bed and at least attempt to eat. A new pack of cigarettes sits on her counter and grows steadily emptier until she buys a new one on the way to work. This goes on and on until one day, when Rey is about to congratulate herself on another day survived, Luke Skywalker is at her door.

“Hi,” she tells her old mentor with a smile he doesn’t return for long. “What are you doing here?”

“Rey, you should sit down,” is the first thing he says and all at once, every alarm bell in her head screeches, flooding her instantly with red hot panic that burns from her veins out onto her skin.

“What happened?” She can’t move, she’s rigid.

“It would really be better if you sat down,” Luke repeats but he’s gotta be out of his mind if he thinks she’s going to move an inch now.

“Tell me what happened,” she repeats and he takes way too long to answer.

“Earlier today,” he starts finally, hesitantly. “During lunch… one of the inmates managed to get to Ben.”

“What are you saying?” The whole world goes blood red and swims before her eyes. This can’t be. It can’t.

“I’m so sorry, Rey,” Luke says and his eyes dart around for a fraction of a moment. “Ben was stabbed today.”

“What?” On autopilot, Rey clutches the doorframe with her left hand and her chest with her right. It doesn’t help her breathe, it barely helps her stay on her feet. “Is he alright? He isn’t…”

 

“He’s at the hospital. In surgery,” Luke says. One breath. “But it’s not looking good.”

“No,” she mutters and her body moves by itself, whips around. “No, he’s gonna be...he’ll be fine. I’ll just…” Like a headless chicken, she runs around her apartment to get her things, praying that this is a dream, that she could just...wake up soon. “Which hospital?”

“You shouldn’t be seen there,” Luke warns her but she can see in his face that he knows nothing he says will stop her.

“You must be out of your fucking mind if you think I will stay here when the man that I love is lying on a surgery table somewhere,” she tells him what he already knows. “Which hospital?”

“I’m coming with you,” he says but grabs her hand, holding her back for a second, rather than letting her go. When he goes on he speaks softly, almost like he’s scared to break her - and he’s very right to. “Rey, he might not make it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're very sorry <3


	14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, this is so delayed I'm not even gonna delay it further with a long note. Just bless you all and strap in, lovelies.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN: [How’s My Heart Supposed To Beat Without You?]**

 

The cab ride to the hospital are the longest twenty minutes of Rey’s life up to this point and it’s only beaten by the three hours waiting in some nondescript corner on the trauma floor for news of how Ben’s surgery is going. First it’s just Luke who sits by her side and rubs her back every now and again, his hand reassuring and warm. Then Leia comes, eyes red but not crying and sits down beside her too. Rey’s seen her just this afternoon for coffee, the two of them having met regularly so Rey could catch her up on whatever she knows of Ben’s life. It wasn’t easy or pleasant watching her while Rey went through all the horrible things she knew of Leia’s son’s biography but to think that the story of his life that she told the older woman should end today is a million times worse.

 

It feels like a lifetime of crying, cramped on that couch, all three people in the world who care about Ben and for a superstitious second she is scared that maybe he’ll die because of that, because most people who know of him wouldn’t mind if he died. But she would, she would mind. She would more than mind. To entertain the thought alone hurts her chest and makes her blood pump panic through her veins so she tries to think of anything else. It’s not much use. She can taste the pain already, of how it will feel if the doctor comes out and tells them Ben lies dead on his surgery table. She isn’t sure that she’ll be able to do anything at all then. Maybe forever.

 

The longest ten seconds of her life are the ones that tick by as Ben’s surgeon walks across the hall to them, face unreadable for an excruciating while that stretches into a pitiful eternity. But then he nods, just the hint of a smile on his face and Rey releases a long breath she wasn’t aware of holding.

“He’s resting now,” he says and Rey wants to hug and kiss him, her anxiety evaporating with a force to make her lightheaded and dizzy. “It was touch and go for a minute there but he’s a fighter. He’ll be just fine.”

“Can we see him?” Leia asks and the doctor nods.

“He’s just been taken to recovery and should be waking up soon, once the nurse gives the go ahead, you can go in,” he says and then looks at the three of them quizzically. “Are you all family?”

“Yes,” Luke replies without missing a beat, “Uncle, mother and sister.”

It’s not even all the way a lie. If anything, it gets Rey inside a good twenty minutes later. There are policemen waiting at the door but they have no idea who Rey is and it’s a blessing, this way she doesn’t have to bullshit her way around. They are read the guidelines for visiting prisoners in a public hospital, sign their understanding with Rey making up a new signature on the spot and are led inside.

 

Ben barely seems to register that anyone entered his room but once she is closer to him, he turns his head and promptly grins, drowsy but alive and Rey half jumps to him. Luke and Leia stay in the background for the time being and she wonders if Ben even realized that they’re there as well. She doesn’t linger on equal opportunity to see him though, if she is given first go, she’ll take it greedily, no questions asked.

“You scared me half to death,” she says quietly as soon as she is in earshot. He looks up at her but she quickly realizes that she can’t look him in the eye just yet because if she did, she would go back to crying and she can’t have that. She wants to see him. So instead, she focuses on her fingers as they smooth out his hair from his forehead, smiling wistfully just at the sensation. She wants to touch all of him but this will have to do for now.

 

“Sorry, love, thought I had it,” he mutters, sounding fuzzy from the meds but looking like he’s working hard to be aware of every moment.

“How do you feel?” Rey puts her wandering hand in his hair for good, just for the contact and because she doesn’t want to let go.

“Floaty?” He says after a little bit of thought. “They’ve got me on some good stuff.”

“You need to be careful with that,” she says, shooting the IV drip a sceptical look. “Pain killers are just as addictive as hard drugs.”

“Can you tell them that in a day or so?” he frowns. “I’m not a fan of the stabbing thing, really hurts.”

“Okay,” she says, a small smile that’s not going to stay for long because she’s hyper aware of the stitched stab wounds underneath his hospital shirt and thin cover. She just glances over it, not wanting to linger. It’s all she thinks about anyway. “Do you know who did this?”

“Not names,” he says. “They were some of the assholes giving me looks, just didn’t know they’d both have weapons. Guessing connections, those wouldn’t be easy to hide.”

“Hux,” she says. Because who else could it be?

“Hux. Who’s surprised?” He looks a little loopy, offering his rhetorical question to the room at large, which tells her that he is very much aware of his mother and uncle. Still, a second later, his eyes find hers again and she has a pretty good idea that what capacity he has for focus is on her.

“If we could prove that it was him…” she thinks aloud.

“Can we?” He asks her and then his eyes flicker across the room again, roughly to where Luke is. “Can we?”

 

“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Luke says on his short way over, looking back to Leia for a second who stays in the shadows in a way that hurts Rey in an odd way. Just seeing her crouched in the corner like she isn’t even sure she can step out into the light where her son could see her. Ben is blind to it. He’s looking at Luke now and gives him a shrug.

 

“Well, we’d need some connection between them. Are you familiar with either of the two?” Luke asks him. “There’s nothing in their files that would put them together.”

“They’re normal guys, long sentences so they’re going nowhere fast,” Ben mumbles, head lolling with exertion of trying to think. “Probably not great money, they’re street trash.”

“I’ll see if I can rattle some cages, get them to talk,” Luke nods and Ben looks sincerely grateful, which brings on another sort of heartache for Rey. This one is sweeter, because it’s for Ben reconnecting, even in such little things, with his family.

“Ben?” Rey says, reclaiming his attention, for him but also a little bit for herself. He hums her way in acknowledgement, turning his head to look at her.

“Baby, your mother wants to see you for a second,” she says and hopes he’ll be up for it. “Is that okay?”

Before giving any other answer, he grabs her hand which must be as hard as he can manage. His lips quiver a bit from the effort. “Are you gonna go?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises.

“Yeah,” he says, “okay then.”

 

Leia takes that cue thankfully. She approaches slowly, almost like a wild animal is waiting at the end of her way. Once she’s arrived, her hands twitch up like she wants to touch him but doesn’t know how and so she drops them again, useless. It makes Rey want to hold her but she keeps her distance, vowing to let the two of them figure each other out by themselves.

“I’m...so happy you’re alive,” she says.

“Me too.” Ben blinks. And frowns. “Not that you’re alive. Wait, no. I mean I’m happy I’m alive, too.”

“I was worried sick, we all were,” she says, smiling kindly. “I hope you’ll be better soon.” And then there is silence for a stretch that is filled with the two of them just looking at each other and Rey still has that sense that they’re trying to age each others faces up in their minds yet another time. To find the long lost people within each other again. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“I’ll take med stay over the prison,” he says, shaking his head and makes his point by rattling the padded cuffs that keep his arms by his sides at all times. Leia flinches. “These are nicer.”

“I su-suppose we’ll just..give you two a moment alone,” she says and Rey’s head snaps to the older woman. She hadn’t expected that.

“Is that allowed?” Ben tries to sit up but has to give up after just raising his head off the pillow for all of ten seconds. “I thought it was just family and lawyer.”

“Ben, if that’s the one good thing I can do for you right now, I want to do it,” Leia nods, bending down to him and the look they share is intense and loaded with years and years of history Rey will never be fully able to grasp. “I’ll find a way.”

“Thanks, M-” he catches himself and the word on his lips is interrupted by a pause in which he seems to decide to let go and give her just an inch of what she wants, what she so desperately needs of him. And maybe he needs it a little bit as well. “Mom.”

 

Leia draws in a sharp breath and Rey has an inkling that she whips her head and body to Luke to drag him away and out, not just to do what she promised her son but also so she doesn’t cry in front of him. The twins leave and Rey is left alone with the man she loves for the first time in weeks.

“Huh,” she says, still a little surprised but glad to have him to herself for as long as they may have.

“C’mere,” Ben reaches over to her as far as he can and tugs at her cardigan with some force. “Watch the side.” She does, trying not to touch too much of his wounded torso as she gets closer.

“Do you think it’s alright if I kiss you?” she asks him, knowing he won’t turn her down but she still wants to give him the opportunity.

“Yeah, yeah” he nods and pulls on her hand more insistently. There’s only so far he can lean up, constricted by his injuries and significantly by being strapped to the bed. He tries though. “Please.”

She won’t leave him wanting, not in any reality. So she kisses him, softly but firm, first on the mouth, then the cheeks, on his forehead and then rests her head on his pillow, keeping close to his face. “I can’t believe I might’ve never got to do this again. I can’t believe I almost lost you.”

 

“You didn’t, I’m here,” he whispers and then groans in frustration when all he can do is nuzzle back against her. She knows he wants to put his hands around her just as much as she wants him to. “They’ll keep me safer after this, they have to.”

“Goddammit. That shouldn’t even be necessary,” she says and leans back so he can see her hard face and know it’s serious. “I hate this. All of it.”

“I know,” he grits out and of all things, there’s a look of guilt tugging at his features. “I’m sorry, I should’ve been faster. Hux shouldn’t have got to that kid.”

“It doesn’t matter now. It’s not your fault, it’s Hux’s. And I’ll do anything I can to make sure he pays,” she promises and only lets go of him briefly, so she can pull up a chair and take his hand and put the other lightly against his cheek. “So talk to me, we might not get a chance like this any time soon.”

“What d’you wanna talk about?” His eyes are warm, his face soft and it almost feels like it did months ago. That angle of him, face on a pillow, smiling at her, absently brushing his thumb over her knuckles. “I don’t wanna talk about prison, that’s all.”

“Everything else then,” Rey allows. “I really don’t care as long as it’s us talking.”

 

So they talk, about whatever random thing pops into Rey’s head. He has her talk about all the things she’s cooked the week before, about the documentaries she’s been watching. She tells him she can’t stomach TV shows anymore, with everything that’s happened. They even go so far as discussing the semi-regular coffee dates of Rey and Leia and she can tell he fights for consciousness, more and more with every passing minute. But the pain meds have a way of kicking in so heavily that his speech gets slurred and his eyes heavy and he’s still babbling when he’s already drifting away. Rey half wants to shake him but if he can find sleep, she doesn’t want to be the person to take that away from him.  

 

As he drifts away, she’s already getting out the pen and paper to write him another letter. She wants him to have it when he wakes up, to see her well wishes, read how much she loves him, to have a piece of her when she is gone. And only then does she get Luke and Leia back in the room. Before they leave, she puts the letter underneath his shirt so he’ll find it once he wakes up. She parts with the sleeping Ben braving a heavy heart and slow steps but it can’t be helped. She can’t stay there forever. Her brain does, however. She thinks of him in that bed constantly, thinks of nurses and doctors working around his handcuffs, of him waking up in a cold, white room knowing when he leaves, he won’t return to a safe home.

 

The news comes a day later, by way of Luke who calls late in the afternoon. Ben’s trial has been moved. It’ll start in two weeks. No more time to prepare. Not much more time for anyone to attack Ben and finish what Hux wants done. Even less of it now. Because Ben has been put in solitary. For his own protection. Rey puts the phone down and half crawls to her bed. She doesn’t get out of it for two days. Now her love is truly in a cage like an animal. All alone. She’d rip herself apart to get him out but she can’t do anything. She’s useless. Deep into the second night of feeling like her lungs are bound by thick robe, she has one small but pointed thought and suddenly she can breathe. Yes, she is technically useless. _Unless…_

 

She can change it. She can be useful, very much so. And she will be.

 

***

 

_All things being fair, the hospital is actually pretty nice. Ben gets regular meals that, in comparison to what he’s been eating, don’t suck too hard, and the nursing staff doesn’t wholesale treat him like he’s about to murder them all. There’s one doctor who gives him a wide berth and another who looks at Ben like he’s something the doctor stepped in, but the nurses are largely unimpressed with him and Ben loves them a little bit for it. Honestly, he’s not sorry to see the treatments and IV and all that go, but he does miss the open space and barred window at the hospital when he goes back and escorted immediately to the special housing unit._

 

_SHU is...well, it’s not great. They try to take Rey’s last letter from him before they actually read it and realize there’s nothing more dangerous than hope written on the piece of paper folded in his waistband. He’s already nearly worn out the paper by the time he’s been discharged with dissolving stitches and a decent bill of health, but he gets to keep it, so Ben smoothes it out and places it under his pillow for safe-keeping. There’s no bargaining for tape or anything to keep it on the wall, and the only flat surface is the tiny metal desktop and that just looks depressingly smaller with Rey’s letter sitting on it, so his bed feels like the best place._

_It also becomes a sort of holy ground in the two weeks of Ben’s stay, now that his trial’s been moved up. He’d expected something to change, but the date is much closer than even Ben had anticipated. He has two meetings with Luke in that time, the first on the day he’s put in solitary and the second two days before trial. A lot happens in those ten days._

 

_His bed is everything. Obviously, there’s more to the room than the bed - a narrow, flickering light running the length of his cell, a heinous combination of toilet, sink, and water fountain, the desk and what passes for a stool bolted to the floor beneath it - but the bed is the only place Ben allows himself any peace._

_He falls into something like the pattern he’d used to have, only without having any actual job to do. Ben wakes up, eats the meal he’s given, and then starts moving. The entirety of his cell is no more than ten feet across, so he can’t run, but there’s plenty of other ways Ben can exhaust himself, and it’s better than languishing in bed until he finds sleep. He’s not sure he would sleep if he didn’t exercise, honestly. So he keeps moving until he has to stop, until his muscles burn and he’s short of breath, and then he sleeps. It can’t be anything like a normal schedule, because sometimes he wakes up with a jolt when the slot in the door bangs open to allow in a tray of food, and sometimes he’s in the middle of breaking a sweat when it happens. He’d never be able to tell, since the room is lit exactly the same amount every hour of the day._

 

 _It hits him sometime in the middle of the week that he’s alone, and not just because he wants to be or because he’d rather not see any of the other inmates he can’t help himself but look down on. Ben hadn’t left his cell much when he hadn’t been in SHU, but it’s entirely different knowing he_ can’t _leave. It hits him like a ton of bricks between one flicker of the light and the next, and suddenly Ben can’t breathe. He scrambles up onto his bed and shoves all of his long limbs into the corner where it’s bolted to the wall and puts his head down on his knees._

_It’s so much worse than locking himself in his apartment. Ben had made that choice for himself and as awful as that had been, he’d at least known why he was doing it, that he could get out if he really wanted to, but this. This is concrete walls and knowing he could shout himself hoarse before anyone would give a damn. It’s the silence and pressure of his own thoughts circling endlessly, rerunning every bad play he’s made and trying not to let the creeping sense of failure crawl into his bones._

 

 _He’s going to die in here. Ben knows it with a certainty that scares him. Maybe not in this room, maybe not even in this exact prison, but he’s going to die in jail, having ruined Rey’s life irreparably, and there’s nothing Ben can do about it. Huddled as he is in the smallest position he can manage on the bed, Ben’s breath gets too quick and the warmth of it feels like too much and he unfolds in a snap, turning on the sink as high as it will go for_ something _, something other than the sound of his own heavy breathing._

_Ben is still sitting like that, arms wrapped around his shins, forehead on his knees, matching his breathing to the rush and gurgle of the tap water, when a guard starts banging on the door._

 

_“Solo! What the hell is going on in there?” Ben might laugh at the irony that they’ll come for running water, but not for shouting, except he’s far too busy trying not to fall out of his own skin. “Shut off that water, this isn’t a resort!”_

_He doesn’t move to follow instructions, partly because he can’t bring himself to kill that noise, not knowing they’ll leave him alone again as soon as it stops. Partly because Ben doesn’t want to cooperate. He’s been cooperative. He’s given up everything he’d ever scraped out for himself in life to be the better man, taken threats and punches and god damn fucking stab wounds and being tossed into an eight by ten room with nothing but himself for company for six days straight. Ben doesn’t want to cooperate, and the ragged sound of the steel door being opened is like a breath of fresh air when it comes._

 

_There’s two guards, Fett and Nines, by their nametags. Ben has started paying attention to names after Luke wanted to get information on his attackers, and he notes it dully as the pair comes in, Nines going to shut off the tap with efficient movements. It’s irrational, yes, but Ben can’t stop himself from trying to block him. It only earns him a baton pressed into his chest as the other guard keeps him where he is, sitting on his bed._

_“Watch it,” Fett says lowly, a clear warning._

_“It’s just water,” Ben snaps. “I’m not doing anything wrong.” There’s a voice in the back of his head that sounds upsettingly like Rey, telling him to be good. Go along with it. But Ben is tired, worn paper-thin from bouncing of these walls, and it feels good to talk to someone, even if it’s to get in an argument. His voice isn’t all that rusty, since he’s held on to his ritual of telling Rey whatever he can think of, talking to her letter like it’s any kind of substitute for her._

 

_“Wasting resources.” Nines is the one to speak this time, and he’s a little less gruff than Fett, more matter-of-fact. “You’re here for your own safety, Solo. This is a privilege, don’t push it.”_

_Ben can’t help it, he laughs, right in a prison guard’s face, and that can’t be called good behavior at all, but it’s just so fucking_ funny _. A privilege. SHU isn’t some gift or retreat, everybody knows. Ben is still new as far as the prison system goes, but even he knew before he’d been sent here just from rumors that SHU fucks you up. It wears you down without any help from the prison staff, and Ben had thought he’d be strong enough to handle it. What a fucking joke._

_“What’s so funny?” Fett grinds out, shoving the baton harder into Ben’s chest. He pushes it away easily enough, leaning back so Fett falls forward for a second against his own weight and Ben knows he fucked up, but doesn’t care._

_“That was a joke, right?” he says, unwilling to stop running his mouth. “Being here is a privilege? Screw you, I can’t even run the sink when I want to.”_

 

_To Ben’s disappointment, neither of them gets into a verbal or physical fight with him about it, Nines just kicks the leg of the bed, making Ben jolt, and then they turn and go. Defiant, Ben gets up and turns on the water again as soon as the sound of their boots fade, but it can’t be more than a few minutes before the water peters out. Ben stays glaring at the sink for a while more - maybe seconds, maybe an hour, he can’t tell - before flopping onto his back and staring at the ceiling and his flickering light._

_He can’t make himself move for a long time. It feels like too much to even roll onto his side, a herculean effort to slide his hand under his pillow and feel Rey’s letter crinkle against his knuckles. His eyes probably start watering because it’s been so long since he blinked, but once Ben shuts them, the tears keep going. He can’t say he’s sad, really, or angry or guilty or anything at all. He keeps crying anyway, silent and incidental, and doesn’t have the will to fight whatever the weight is that feels like it’s crushing his sternum._

 

_He’s going to die here._

_Ben falls asleep with that thought ringing dully in his head and wakes up with no thoughts at all in his head. He gets up, eats the meal they bring him, sets aside the new addition of two water bottles, and he starts moving. He doesn’t stop until he sleeps again, and then he does it all over. Days don’t matter, hours matter even less, and all that exists is his bed. His bed where Rey’s letter sits under his pillow and the only place he’s allowed to think._

_Ben doesn’t like to think anymore. He owes Rey at least that much, to be something of a functional person when she sees him next, so he practices, retells himself bedtime stories from their childhood and the first time they met again as adults and the last months they had together. He pretends hard enough he almost convinces himself it’s okay that that’s all they had. He can’t make himself believe in a happy ending, not in an eight by ten room alone._

 

_By the time he meets with Luke again two days before his trial, Ben’s stitches are dissolved away, he hasn’t had running water in his cell since they started giving him bottles of water, and Ben just doesn’t care. He’ll follow instructions, tell the court what they practiced, and he’ll see Rey. It’s the only thought that’s managed to get him to roll out of bed anymore. He’ll see Rey, if only momentarily, if only across a courtroom, and Ben can’t help but think maybe he’ll remember what it was like to breathe when he gets to see her face._

 

_His meeting with Luke is brief, a simple restating of what Ben will tell the court and Luke assuring him that everything is in order, asking after Ben’s health. His body is fine anyway, and he sends Luke off somewhat regretfully if only because it means going back into his room. Ben swears up and down that if Rey ever miraculously talks him into kids, he’s never sending a child of his to their room, not unless they really, truly deserve it._

_The ride to the courthouse two days later is short but full of traffic, and Ben spends the time staring at the city resentfully. He’d been able to virtually disappear in it for so long and now it’s a whole world away, the corner stores and subway stations and skyscrapers a distant reality that Ben like won’t have except for in small moments over the next decade or two. The cop driving must be from the city, because he swears colorfully but calmly at the traffic, unsurprised and almost good-natured about it. Ben would have zipped all sorts of illegally through the small gaps if he’d been behind the wheel._

_They still manage to make it on time, and Ben has a few minutes to change into his suit before Luke leads him into their designated room. There’s a gaggle of press outside, ready and waiting to shout questions at them both when Ben and Luke approach the massive double doors._

 

_“Mr. Solo, are you still working for the First Order?” “Where did the children come from?” “Do you have anything to say to the families?” It all mixes together in his ears, a mess of demands for answers and apologies and Ben shrugs his shoulders up in lieu of being able to yell at them all the shut the fuck up, it’s none of their business. After his extended solitude, it feels even more invasive than it would any other time, and Ben’s natural tendency toward privacy grates against the flash of a camera going off as Luke ushers him through the doors. There’s no chance of Luke blocking him from sight like he’s clearly trying to do, but Ben gives him credit for trying. It’s not Luke’s fault he comes up to Ben’s nose at best._

_Once the doors creak shut behind them, it takes all of two heartbeats for Ben to find Rey sitting in the first row behind the tables for the lawyers and clients. Hair up in the same high bun as always, she’s easy to find, and just her profile as she turns at the sound of the doors eases the tension making Ben’s back ache. She looks...worried? Hesitant? Definitely determined, but there’s something else there, something that makes Ben curious, but it gets brushed aside for the simple joy of seeing her here and well, no one in handcuffs for the time being._

 

_They can’t speak, obviously, but Ben is allowed to look at her, he’s allowed to care for her, so he does, pausing long enough to give Rey a once-over when he’s level with her seat. She looks tired, not as ragged as he’d feared, and Ben hates himself for it, but he’s a little glad she hasn’t bounced back into her regular life. He’d had this nagging fear that once they’d put some distance between him and her, Rey would remember all the reasons she shouldn’t be with him. It doesn’t take more than a glance from her to let him know those fears were misplaced. She may be sitting straight-backed and poised, but the look Rey gives him crawls under his skin and if they’d been alone, he’d already have his hands on her. Ben ducks his head so he doesn’t do something stupid. Follows Luke to their seats. Keeps his composure._

_He keeps that up as best he can throughout the whole ordeal, digs his nails into his thighs through his nicely pressed trousers when the prosecution gives an overly-dramatic reading of Hux’s statement. He’s apparently provided the state with valuable information and won’t be pulled in to testify, which is actually pretty stupid on their part. Hux has always been a better actor than Ben, and if they want to prove Ben is some kind of heartless, unsympathetic criminal, putting Hux within reaching - and also punching - distance would do it. Ben can only think Hux asked not to be present. He must know Ben would destroy him if given half a chance._

 

_Robbed of the chance to cross-examine Hux himself, Luke goes over the facts about Hux’s and Ben’s states when the FBI had arrived. It’s a stroke of brilliance to ask why on earth Ben would be carrying two handguns and Hux without a weapon on him at all. Hux’s story that Ben had forced him to come along and turned on Hux when he’d brought up the idea of turning themselves in makes less sense with that one small fact than Ben’s honest recounting of events. Luke brings up the presence of two cars as well, the tricky details that make Hux’s story seem fabricated, and Ben is fiercely pleased to see it go over with the jury. There are more than a few faces that looks puzzled if not outright skeptical of Hux’s clinical recounting in contrast to Luke’s earnest presentation of Ben’s story, complete with the shock and panic Ben had felt when Hux had showed up and confessed to murdering Snoke as well._

_The opposing counsel protests at that, pointing out that Snoke’s murderer isn’t on trial here, whoever it may be, and Luke has to abandon that line of thought, but it’s done it’s job. The jury isn’t on Hux’s side. They close the day with a testimony from Chanty, of all people, who looks worse for wear, clearly more sober than she’d used to and jittery for it. She provides an account of Ben’s disgust with Hux and his side of the business, but embarrassingly mentions that she heard Ben was nicer to the girls when he was in charge in Florida. Luke hastily scrambles to cover that and redirects her to ask about what, if anything, she witnessed regarding Hux’s involvement in the child trafficking and Ben’s accusation that Hux had acted as head of the First Order in Snoke’s absence._

 

_“He was always on his phone,” she says, shrugging. “He said he was a busy man, but he didn’t tell us anything, really. Just where to go when we were working. Check his desk, he always got real mad when anybody messed with his paperwork stuff.”_

_Luke takes the opening, drawing the court’s attention to the evidence Rey had lifted from Hux’s apartment and skipping over the fact that she’d been breaking and entering to acquire it. If Hux won’t show up to testify, he won’t be there to argue that Ben and Rey had never been out of his sight long enough to take anything from his apartment when they were welcomed in. And for all Hux knows, they might have taken it when Ben left him unconscious on his living room floor. If he’d been anywhere close to thinking clearly that night, maybe Ben even would have, but he’d had other things occupying his mind, obviously._

_It’s a good enough segue that Mothma calls an end to the proceedings for the day and announces they’ll pick up again with the presentation of evidence and Poe Dameron’s testimony._

_Ben catches Rey’s eye on the way out, watching her stand as he and Luke turn to head out. She pushes ahead to meet him as he walks past the row she’d been sitting in, taking the moment to brush his hand over hers, squeeze her fingers briefly before he has to let go again. His steps falter going forward and Ben has to flex his hand, clenching it into a fist so he doesn’t reach out for her again._

 

_It’s less of a shock to see her when they go in again, and Ben still lets himself watch her until it becomes irresponsible to do so. Rey almost rolls her eyes at him for his obvious staring, and Ben can taste how badly he wants to be able to sit with her, let her tease him and be able to just be together like they’d had before. He tries to pay attention to the trial, but his mind keeps wandering back to Rey. It’s a day he can tune out anyway, all legaleese that Ben doesn’t really understand. Luke picks at the prosecution’s insistence that Ben masterminded the trafficking shipment, drawing on documents with Hux’s signature and Dameron’s testimony about how the case progressed from the information given to him by Rey._

_Ben finds himself liking the fed despite himself. He’s a good-natured guy, friendly and sincere when he’s defending the law. Ben can tell why Rey seemed to be fond of him. It doesn’t hurt that Dameron freely admits to having been told multiple times that Ben had been hesitant to take part in the operation. He cuts a glance between Ben and Rey in the middle of the prosecution’s questioning, and Ben is fairly certain if Dameron doesn’t know he and Rey are involved, he has a strong suspicion. He must also have a soft spot for Rey, because he doesn’t mention her being anything other than an exemplary officer, praising her track record and her habit of checking in regularly and keeping the FBI updated throughout her operation with the First Order._

 

_There’s a slightly longer break between day two and day three, so Ben has a while to cool off and go a little stir-crazy in SHU again before going back to court. He’s nearly worn holes in the concrete, it feels like. It’s the same routine as before, making it into the courthouse, changing into his civilian clothes, dodging the press, and the back of Rey’s head hits him like a sledgehammer. Is this how he’ll see her from now on? A backward glance in a courtroom, conversations through plate glass, the barest scraps of interaction feeling like a blessing. The thought makes him frown and he almost misses Rey’s expression, a more hardened look than she’s had the past two days of the trial, and Ben can only suppose it’s because they’re questioning one of the kids today._

_Ben isn’t looking forward to it much himself, would rather skip listening to a kid tell the room about how Ben nearly got him shot after bullying them in a getaway van. But it’s his trial and Ben has to be here. Luke had said it would be good to show the jury a real child, one that Ben had saved, and it’s a strategically sound move, but Ben still doesn’t like it somehow. They don’t make the kid take a formal oath, Judge Mothma having determined whether or not the kid’s testimony will be taken already. Luke had explained it to him beforehand, having been present for the determination._

_Luke’s kind to the kid, asking for a retelling of events as best he can remember, and Ben listens as the boy who’d been contrary with him tells the court that Ben saved their lives. His perspective is skewed and he substitutes death for whatever might have actually awaited him and the others, but he tells it like it happened without much embellishment._

 

_“And then the red-haired guy put his gun up to my head, and that guy made him stop,” he says, pointing at Ben across the room._

_“Let the record show that the witness has identified Ben Solo,” Luke says coolly, only a little obviously pleased with the moment._

_“Yeah,” the kid nods along. “Ben Solo.”_

_Ben has to put his head down for a moment, uncomfortable with the attention drawn, but he brings it back up a second later, remembering Luke’s note that he ought to own his good actions as much as he ought to show sincere regret for his crimes. The jury is staring at him, faces softer than before, more contemplative. There’s no way they can pin the trafficking on him now. The rest of his crimes may be a different story, and he’s still enough of the bad guy that the prosecution should have no trouble putting him away, but perhaps it’ll be for only fifteen years or something, instead of the life sentence he’d been preparing for._

_The prosecution can’t cross-examine too harshly if only because it’ll lose him sympathy for berating a child, but he does manage to get the kid to admit Ben had herded all the kids into a van and seemingly been intent on delivering them to the docks. It’s a weak rebuttal at best and the judge dismisses the kid after only a few questions. And then Mothma says something she’s definitely not supposed to._

 

_“The defense calls Miss Rey Kenobi to the stand.”_

_Ben only pauses briefly to stare at Luke before whipping around to look at Rey. Who is, sure enough, standing and walking to the front of the room, placing her hand on a Bible and promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He doesn’t even know what his face is doing, but Ben can feel his eyes are too wide, staring at her. Rey’s gaze skips over him, wandering the room and she must be avoiding looking at him._

_Luke stands, muttering, “It’s going to be fine” so lowly only Ben would hear it, and walks toward the stand. If he hadn’t walked off so quickly, Ben might’ve tried to stop him, but all he can do is sit quietly and fume. If Rey ruins her life over this, he’ll never forgive himself._

 

_***_

 

The chair squeaks a little when she sits down and Rey wonders how many people have sat here prepared to do what she is now prepared to do. How many people have sat here resolved to tell the truth and almost nothing but the truth, even if it means getting themselves into big trouble. How many have sat here doing that for the person they loved above all else in the world? Maybe hundreds, maybe dozens, she’s not sure. She can feel at least forty pairs of eyes on her when she is sworn in and she tries not to be so keenly aware of it.

“Just tell me the story like no one else is in the room,” Luke had said before and that’s what she’s going to do now. Come hell or high water, this is the moment.

 

“You are aware that you are under oath from this point on forward, Miss Kenobi?” The judge says and shakes Rey from her trance. She nods, she knows. Ben is still staring at her. She wishes she could keep engaging him but if she keeps looking at him, she’s never going to do what she has to. And she _has_ to. The mumbling starts when Luke proceeds and the opposing counsel only looks sour about it. From the corner of her eye she can see Ben’s head snap up to Luke and his eyes turn to slits. She can’t look at him.

 

“Miss Kenobi, I understand that the official version of events is that you were embedded in the First Order by your former connection with the defendant,” Luke begins easily, stepping forward into the space where he moves with his common ease - thankfully into Ben’s line of sight, which means that Rey can focus on him rather than his nephew.

“That is the official version, yes,” she nods.

“But it isn’t the truth, is it?” Luke states.

“Objection, rhetorical,” the prosecution spits and adds, “and theatrical.”

“Sustained,” the judge says easily. “Straightforward questions, council, please.”

“As you wish,” Luke says and turns back to Rey. “What is the truth of the matter, Miss Kenobi?”

 

“I saw Ben Solo a month and a week before I ever suggested going undercover,” she starts and talks quickly, over the first couple of gasps from the back of the room. One of those might’ve been Ben. “I cornered him at the docks after tracking him down to a shake up. I apprehended him but he threatened to shoot himself. I should not have let him go. But I did. I let him go and I covered it up.”

There is mild commotion, but still noticeable enough that Judge Mothma’s gavel hovers above the wooden block and shoots a glare that says she’s not afraid to use it.

“Why did you do that?” Luke asks, approaching her slightly. Ben comes back into view like that, all color drained from his face, his eyes shooting her a warning which she is resolved to ignore.

“I couldn’t...bear it,” she says truthfully. “By that time I hadn’t seen him in a year and we had been - we’d left things unresolved before. There were personal feelings involved.”

“Of what nature?” Luke says. “And please elaborate on the fact that you had seen him a year prior. This has not been disclosed in the earlier version of your statement brought forward by the state.”

“The feelings were personal. Conflicted. I could not let him die. A year prior I had a month-long romantic relationship with the defendant. I was unaware of his criminal activities back then. But I was aware when I let him escape.”

“And then you approached your superiors to go on an undercover mission into the First Order based on your existing relationship with the defendant?”

“No,” Rey says, staring a hole into the far wall, trying not to see either Ben, nor Dameron in the room. “Mr. Solo found me in my home and told me about the child trafficking operation that was being set in motion. He asked me for my help in taking it down.”

“The defendant came to you with the information first?” Luke asks for clarification, opening his stance toward the jury, to make sure they realized the importance of this new information. Judging by most of their shocked and surprised expressions, they did. Maybe this alone is worth this whole ordeal, Rey thinks.

“Yes, he came to me with it,” she confirms. “He brought me in. I fabricated the story I gave my team leader. Mr. Solo and I planned for me to go undercover so I could help him.”

 

“And then what happened?” Luke asks over low mumbles and shifting chairs. Rey catches Poe Dameron’s eye where he sits in the second row behind the prosecution and he looks like she punched him in the gut or rather, like she just told him something really disgusting that makes him rethink any trust or affection he ever had for her. Because that’ likely what it is. She has to look away before she can chicken out. She has to do this, it’s the only way to help Ben. She has to.

 

So Rey takes a deep breath, focuses on a spot at the far wall and then she tells them almost everything like no one but Luke is in the room. She tells them about the first weeks with Ben, about how he tried his hardest to get her ready, about the things she had to do to get in, about Hux and how despicable he is - she talks about this at length. She does not mention the man she killed by her way of initiation, neither the fact that it was her that shot Greta but she does tell them about handing out and selling drugs at Maz’s Castle and that Ben had not been involved in that. She tells them about how ardently he’d worked to dismantle the trafficking op first and then the entire operation later. Faces get longer, or more puzzled, depending where you look but Rey keeps staring blankly ahead. Luke closes his line of questioning with ease but the question is still hard to answer.

 

“Knowing all you know now, would you make the same decisions again, Miss Kenobi?” He asks her, already stepping back to his table and there is Ben tugging at her gaze from where he sits. She can feel his eyes on her and gives in, finally. She sees him now, face blazing and eyes searing into her.

“Yes, even with everything,” she says, only to Ben. “I would do it all over again.”

He looks at her like she’s handed him his heart in pieces. It really is amazing how he can fit that much conflict in a look, proud and horrified and like he’s gotten everything he ever wanted, in the worst imaginable way.

“Your witness,” Luke declares and moves back to his seat. Rey turns her attention reluctantly to the prosecution and she can tell from the way he shoots up from his seat that he is angry and out for blood. Hers or Ben’s still, she isn’t sure.

 

“Miss Kenobi, are you aware that the picture of minor indiscretions you are painting here is a facade? You committed serious crimes,” he says sharply. “Let’s review, quickly. Together.” He reads from a notepad and it’s as much to rattle her as it is to influence the jury. It’s obvious and she’s very afraid that it’s going to be effective. “Criminal facilitation, obstructing governmental administration, failure to report criminal perpetrators, aiding and abetting a known and wanted fugitive. That’s anywhere between 4 and 21 years in prison combined. Are we all supposed to believe a federal agent would do these things so easily and still serve her agency and her country?”

“Objection, rhetorical,” Luke bites.

“Sustained,” Judge Motma allows.

“Withdrawn,” the prosecution says. “Miss Kenobi, you admit to committing criminal actions while working in cooperation with Mr. Solo?”

“Yes, as it was tolerated as long as it was to maintain my cover and push the investigation forward,” Rey answers dryly.

 

“And you failed to report or apprehend a known wanted criminal before that for what reason?” he challenges and she already knows this won’t go over too well for her. “Your own personal feelings?”

“Like I said,” she answers anyway.

“So how is it that this court can trust you are not committing perjury for the sake of painting Mr. Solo in a more positive light, given your personal attachment to him?” The question seems appropriate enough but it still angers her.

“Because I am under oath, sir,” she shoots. “And I am not a liar.”

“You have already provided false witness for this case, Miss Kenobi, is that not true?” _Dammit._

“Yes,” she says and it comes out pathetic and sheepish and she hates herself and the opposing counsel and all the people that stare at her like she’s a monkey in a zoo. She has set herself up for this one.

“And why would you do that?”

“Because Mr. Solo wanted to protect me,” she replies, truthfully. “He asked me not to tell the truth. To protect me.”

“And you do whatever Mr. Solo thinks best?” The DA takes a pointed step towards her and it takes all she has to not flinch away from him. “Instead of providing a full and honest testimony for the court?”

“I do not do whatever he thinks is best. He’ll attest to that,” she says. “But I decided to do it this once. But there’s been an attempt on his life orchestrated by Mr. Hux, as the court has been made aware of and it made this testimony necessary.”

“Your honor,” and suddenly Rey seems to have become totally uninteresting. “I move to dismiss Miss Kenobi’s testimony on the grounds that she is clearly speaking only in an attempt to misconstrue Mr. Solo’s actions and grant him clemency based on falsified testimony.”

“That’s not true!” She is almost shouting when she shouldn’t be saying anything at all. He is trying to rattle her and she’s letting it happen.

“You admit to being emotionally compromised, Miss Kenobi, you admit to previously lying to the court, I move she be held in contempt for perjuring herself,” he says, because of course he would.

“Denied. For now. Let her speak,” Judge Mothma says. “You are saying you are not emotionally compromised?”

“I’m not compromised,” she says and tries to sound convincing, even though she knows she isn’t. Or maybe she is. She can’t be sure, but they have to be. “I’m in full possession of my wits and I am not lying to the court right now.”

“To what end, is the question,” he says, an eyebrow raised skeptically at her as much as the rest of the room.

“So that the court and the jury knows who they’re trying here,” she takes the bait, of course. “Mr. Solo is not the crook the state is making him out to be. Let alone a child trafficker.”

“Or so you say.”

“Objection!” Luke’s voice cuts and it’s met with a cut by Mothma as she denies it like a whip.

 

“If the court won’t hold Miss Kenobi in contempt, allow me just one more question,” the prosecution says, turning back his full attention to Rey and there’s something like mischief or triumph in his eyes that makes her skin prickle.

“Go ahead, council,” the judge allows and nods toward the man that has started slowly stalking back and forth.

“Did you have a romantic relationship with the defendant during the course of your undercover mission?”

“Objection, relevance,” Luke yelps from behind him but it’s useless. Rey knows it before the judge rejects it.

“It is very relevant, Mr. Skywalker,” she says and then turns back to Rey. “Answer the question please, Miss Kenobi.”

“Yes,” she says and even though this can hardly come as a surprise to anyone, there is murmuring in the courtroom. Left and right, even in the jury. Somewhere distant, Ben’s face falls.

“Follow up question,” the lawyer says, almost wickedly. “Are you still engaging in this romantic relationship right now?”

“Yes,” Rey replies after a significant while.

“Are you in love with him?” He asks her and she doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to give him this, or the rest of them. This love is hers and Ben’s and she doesn’t want it to be used against either of them. This love is a good thing, a warm thing, it shouldn’t be used for evil or entrapment.

“Do you love him?” He repeats, harsher now.

“Yes,” she admits at last, out loud to the world and she is determined to keep it good in her heart. If this has to be out in the world, she’ll have it for herself and for her ends if she can. “I love him. With all the bad things he’s done. But I love him especially for the good things. This is what I was trying to say, that he saved these kids. He started the whole thing. The FBI wouldn’t know about the op to this day if it hadn’t been for him. I only helped, he did most of the work. He saved the kids, that was him. He has done terrible things but he has changed, he’s a good man. And yes. I love him.”

 

“So we are now taking the word of two criminals. Do you have any evidence to offer the court, Miss Kenobi, that Mr. Solo did not knowingly and willingly participate in the crimes with which he is charged, without the support or sanction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Or are you simply serving as a character witness in the hope of sparing the man you love?”

“Maz Kanata will corroborate everything I said,” she grits out, bordering on annoyed by now. “But yes, I am willing to serve as character witness as well. I know this man. And he does not deserve what is happening here.”

“It’s up to the jury to decide what Mr. Solo does or does not deserve for his lifetime of crimes. You’ve done enough taking the law into your own hands without trying to pollute the jury,” he says and he’s literally glaring at her. Like she personally offended him with the fact that she loves the man on trial that day. Luke objects and it’s sustained, like she knew it would be.

“No further questions, your honor,” the prosecution says and retires to his chest.

“The witness is relieved,” Judge Motma declares. “Trial suspended until tomorrow. I want to see this Maz Kanata on the stand. Trial begins at noon.”

 

As soon as she bats the gavel, there’s instant commotion, people whispering and staring at her but Rey doesn’t care. She pushes out of the stand, off the little stairs and away from the police guarding the door and just darts across the space. To him. Where else? And she doesn’t care as the murmurs crescendo to whispering, then to mumbles. But nothing matters anymore when she flies into Ben’s arms and he catches her, squeezes and then puts her back, holding her hard by the shoulders and speaking hushed and high pitched and a little bit desperate.

“Rey, what the hell was that?” He asks her, eyes bulging like she’s a mirage, something entirely unreal and unfathomable. She tries to prove to him he is, tries to kiss him so he’ll know and because she can. But he holds her back gently, most likely even now trying to protect her reputation.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she says and smiles, a mix of relief that she finally doesn’t have to hide anymore and spite, because now she can kiss him and not be ashamed or afraid that someone will find out. His only response at first is a frustrated huff of breath, before he presses his lips hard above her eyebrow.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he says, lips still connected to her forehead.

“I had to. I couldn’t let them…” She wants to say _slander you, drag your name through the mud_ \- but he knows that. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but you wouldn’t have let me.”

 

“Yeah, because this is one of those times when I get to tell you the thing you’re doing is crazy,” he says but his face is too soft and too affectionate to properly carry his stern tone. It only matches again when the cop from the door approaches, telling him it’s time to go. Ben waves them off, very annoyed and thankfully Luke steps in to occupy the intruder on this moment so the two of them can focus back on each other.

“Everything I said is inadmissible now, they’re gonna have to change the whole trial’s course,” Ben says, voice lowered to reach just her.

“Maybe for the better,” she says, trying to make him see the good side. She clutches his suit just like he clutches everywhere he can reach, searching his eyes and blocking out the little crowd of spectators unwilling to leave the courtroom any faster than they absolutely have to. “Are you mad?”

“I’m….yes,” he says and it’s kind of a blow, only softened by his lips on hers. It’s just a quick peck on the mouth but it gives her some of that life back that she’s been missing so much. When he speaks again, he sounds almost delirious and very much incredulous. And while she expected his resistance, she is starting to feel shabby. “That was stupid. I know why you- That was so stupid, Rey.”

His actions contradict his tone drastically and it takes Rey a second to process both. While Ben might be trying to be reasonable and angry, he also seems to be incapable of stopping himself from touching her, running his hands over her arms, her face, leaning into her, basically trying to breathe her. He likely thinks he has every right to be upset, but getting to touch her is apparently a luxury he wants for himself even while being upset with her actions.

“I just told the whole world I love you,” she says when she finds her voice again, face scrunched, skin burning under his fingertips and she’s only half joking. “Don’t call me stupid.”

 

“Well, when you do something stupid…” he says and is diverted from Luke now calling over to them to wrap it up. And ignores it promptly. “I love you. I’m gonna have to tell them that, too, but that one’s for you. Just for you.”

“Thank you,” she smiles and touches his chest just for the sake of it. He looks at her like he’s finally able to see color again after having lost it, and he can’t stop staring and seems like he can barely stand not kissing her. Perhaps he doesn’t only because he knows it’ll have to end and he’s afraid he’ll physically fight someone if they try to pull him away if they get started. Rey would give an arm and a leg for him to do it right this second. But Ben stays steadfast and just holds her, takes her in like he is filling up a reserve for his time alone.

“It feels so good to stop acting like you’re nothing to me,” she says after a while of entertaining his gazing. “Even if I’ll probably lose my job now.”

“I’m sorry about your job. You can take whatever you want from my accounts, it’s yours,” he says and then turns to Luke who is getting more adamant, three cops at his back now. “Yeah, alright,” Ben half barks at him and then turns back Rey. “Let me take care of you if you’re doing this, whatever’s mine is yours.”

She kisses him quickly in response, preparing mentally for him leaving in a second and she’s not ready, she’ll never be. “I think we can turn this case around now.” At least that’s something but he still makes a face caught halfway between annoyed at the guards and wanting to believe with her.

“Let’s hope so,” he says. “I’ll see you with Luke? No reason not to now.”

“As soon as possible,” she says. “But the look Dameron gave me back there...it may mean I’ll be- I might have to deal with the fallout from this for a while.”

Before he can answer, the cops have pushed past Luke behind Ben and start pulling at him. It’s not fair, it’s too soon and Rey protests by catching his face in her hands and kissing him, with force and as inappropriate as she can make it, to gross out the guards and all the people still blatantly gawking at them, but she gets lost in it halfway, feeling her body come to life in a way it hasn’t in weeks and weeks. When she moans just a little into his mouth, he closes his lips and takes her out of the moment. Those moans are his, she knows it; he wants them just for himself, not share them with a courtroom full of strangers. Their time is up. For now. But at least now she can go see him whenever she wants without fear of discovery. That’s something. Ben pecks her, once more, as if for good luck and mouths a quick ‘I love you’ to her which she returns quickly. Just in time for him to be turned and led away, the handcuffs going on again before they exit the courtroom.

 

Outside that room where everything changed, Rey experiences the weirdest sensation of feeling at once featherlight and terrified, because finally that secret that weighed so heavily on her is gone, but now that it’s out, there’ll be a slew of consequences she isn’t sure she can face yet. She looks around to see if Poe is waiting somewhere to fire her or take her apart but she can’t see him. She’s glad in a way but she knows it’s coming and she’s not looking forward to it at all. For the brief walk through the courthouse there’s just her and Luke and he has the sense and grace to not talk to her. However, the people who wait for them outside the building lack those manners and politeness entirely

.

As soon as they step out, there are cameras and microphones in her face and she is surprised anew at how quickly word travels in this city. They’re like vultures, the same aggressively probing eyes and mics and questions, from the tabloid to the highbrow newspapers. She tries to block them out and just get down the stairs in one piece but they hover.

“Miss Kenobi, is it true that you conspired with Mr. Solo?” someone yells. “When did you fall in love with him, undercover?” asks someone else and then it all blurs together with the blood rushing through her ears as Luke grabs her around the waist and shields her during their descent. They chase them to the town car Luke’s ordered and two even follow on their motorcycles, snapping pictures even while driving but they lose them somewhere in midtown. By the time Rey makes it home, she is ready to cry and fall apart in the safety of her apartment but life isn’t that kind.

 

She sees him as soon as she turns the corner of the staircase. Finn. Propped up against the door, tapping his knuckles against the wall when his head snaps up to catch her eye. She says his name, half in surprise and half the opposite, and wants to run away from him but she can’t. She owes him at least this. To take his anger and let him vent it.

“Is it true?” He steps away from the door, slightly away from her but his voice and his whole demeanor is apprehensive. A vein pounds dangerously on his forehead and she knows he’d never hurt her but it’s enough to halt in her approach. “What they’re saying about you? About _him_?”

“Just let me explain-” she tries but he cuts in over her straight away.

“Explain what?” He’s bellowing, nearly shouting and his voice fills the hallway as he gets more animated, waving his hands as he speaks. Every word cuts like a knife. “That you betrayed the agency? Everyone you claimed to love and care about? Got in bed with a murderer and helped him escape? That you love him? A terrorist, a pervert, a child-”

“Watch your mouth, that’s not true!” It explodes out of her, harsher than intended but Finn is crossing a line she won’t let him cross. He can be mad at her for the rest of his life if he chooses but he doesn’t know Ben and he doesn’t get to spew these lies in her face.

“Defending him…” Finn says bitterly, a snarl more than anything else. “You’re good at that I’m told.”

“Everything I said was true,” she sneers right back, more vindictive than becomes her. “He is a good man.”

“He’s a killer! A criminal, Rey,” he spits. “How can you even look at yourself? I have no idea who you are anymore.”

 

He turns then, pointedly, and plows ahead, all rage and thumping steps. She should hold him back but she can’t. Her pride won’t let her. Even if she deserves his scorn. And then, she is also angry at him for saying these awful things about Ben. She can’t fault him for any of it, though, which is probably the worst of all.

 

***

 

_Ben’s hands are cuffed to the table for his meeting with Luke after Rey has changed everything about the trial. It’s a precaution, and they’re loose enough Ben almost doesn’t mind, but it’s one more thing to pick at, and he’s become a little obsessed with details lately. Almost nothing changes in his room, so Ben catches the smallest things when they do change._

 

_“The jury ate that story up.” Luke’s voice snaps Ben out of his aimless examination of the cuffs around his wrists. “So did every local newspaper.”_

 

_“Oh, you mean the ones that were calling me a child molester?” Ben asks loftily, slipping into sarcasm with ease. “Anything that’s sensational, right?” They’ve been following his story just as closely as Ben had suspected they would, though Ben hasn’t been looking out for the particulars of the story. He’d managed to catch some of the fallout before being put in solitary. He may be in prison with plenty of other criminals, but the guys who hurt kids don’t tend to last very long. Honestly, if Hux hadn’t orchestrated an attack on Ben, the news would have stirred up enough resentment in time to do the job anyway._

 

_“Well, some of the stories paint you in a very good light now,” Luke goes on, rolling over Ben’s acerbic comments with the ease of practice. “We can work with that perception, the whole Romeo and Juliet imagery they’re using. It could work for you.”_

_“Alright,” Ben huffs after a moment of what even he knows is petulant silence. “What’s the gameplan with this?” None of what he’s said on record is going to be usable since Rey decided to come clean, but hopefully Luke will have ideas for spinning it so Ben comes across as a sympathetic character rather than a criminal caught out in a lie._

 

_“You take the stand,” he says. “Tell your side of the story, the real one this time. And we’re bringing in Maz Kanata as a witness for the defense with the judge’s approval.”_

_“The prosecution’s gonna jump all over me being a liar,” Ben points out. “You saw how he was with Rey and she’s not even the one on trial. Protecting her or not, I lied to the authorities.”_

_“For love,” Luke insists, and Ben sort of wants to gag it’s so cheesy, but it also happens to be true. “It’s a sappy jury, you’ve seen them. This can work, I know it.” Luke’s hand lands on Ben’s shoulder and he goes still. It’s a familiar gesture that Ben is fairly sure Luke thinks nothing of, but Ben’s low tolerance for casual touch combined with his recent deprivation of human contact makes it a strange sensation he isn’t sure whether he wants to welcome or reject. “We’ll put in a plea for a fine on the perjury, because it was to keep Rey from harm.”_

 

_“Fine doesn’t sound so bad,” Ben says somewhat slowly, preoccupied with the hand on his shoulder before Luke retracts it._

_“Could you stop looking like you don’t believe a word I say?” And Ben had no idea he was giving the impression of doubting his uncle. It’s true enough that his life has a tendency of going to hell, but Luke Skywalker is, after all, a great lawyer and Ben has no reason to doubt he’ll get him the best deal possible. It just that he’s still fluctuating between having woken up to the same concrete walls and having Luke tell him there’s a new hope for his trial in light of Rey’s sudden fit of honesty. It doesn’t seem real, especially with his wrist cuffed to the table as a stark reminder of his constraints._

 

_“Optimism hasn’t generally worked out for me so far,” Ben says, consciously relaxing his shoulders where they’d been tensed and spilling a bit of honesty himself. “I’m trying, alright? I’ve spent the last two weeks rattling around in my own head, I’m better at worst case scenarios than ‘it’ll all turn out just fine’.”_

_“I’m just saying,” Luke reiterates, hands open in a placating gesture. “We have a good angle now. There is hope. There is always hope, Ben.”_

_He shrugs it off, not meant to be unkind, but simply unused to anyone but Rey pushing so hard for an optimistic outcome. Let alone his uncle who got into a shouting match with him the first time they saw each other after decades. If nothing else, Ben will probably have occasional other visitors besides Rey when they lock him away._

 

_“I know you know what you’re doing better than I do,” Ben allows. “So prove me wrong. Apparently I don’t know what’s good for me anyway.”_

_“She asked me to give you this,” Luke says at that implication of Rey, handing him a new letter and neatly ignoring Ben’s lingering annoyance with his girlfriend for going over his head and putting herself on the line. “She said she’ll break some legs and bite some arms to be here next time.”_

_“I’d believe her on that.” Ben takes the offered letter, imagining with perfect clarity how Rey would be completely willing to shout down any guard in this place who dared to tell her she can’t come in. The letter goes into his pocket, something to look forward to and help pass the time. He can stretch out the letter if he reads it slowly, keep it new for as long as possible if he only allows himself a sentence or a paragraph at a time._

 

_“I can try to get you out of solitary too,” Luke offers, and Ben is honestly surprised how much he wants that to happen. Obviously, SHU is no walk in the park, but the surge of quiet desperation to get out is unexpected._

_“I’d appreciate that,” Ben says, as if showing any more enthusiasm for the thought would jinx it. “Not that I have friends in here, but it’d be nice to get outside.” The cement dog run lined with dying grass on one side doesn’t count. Not at all, and especially not when he’s only allowed that much twice a week._

_“It’s not easy in there. You’re doing well.”_

_Ben wonders idly if his uncle has had many clients locked away in solitary, or if the look of sympathy is only as strong as it is because Ben is his blood. He wonders if Luke knows what the conditions are like in that room, and decides not to tell him on the off-chance it’ll get back to Rey._

 

_“I know these people,” he shrugs instead. “And I’ve been on my own enough. It was good for something, I guess.”_

_“I’m proud of you anyway,” Luke says, embarrassingly sincere. Ben can’t imagine Luke offering him such blunt praise for the sake of making him feel better, so he must actually mean it, and Ben squirms internally, writhing away from what still feels like undeserved positivity. Outwardly, he fiddles with the chain connected to his wrists to the table and keeps his eyes down, nodding._

_“Must be doing something right, then.” He picks at a flake of rust instead of meeting Luke’s eye, mumbling it almost to himself._

_“As far as I’m concerned, you deserve all the leniency I can get for you,” Luke assures him, glancing up distracted when a guard taps on the window. “It’s time. I’ll try to get you back in the standard cells as soon as possible.” It’s a testament to how much he hates SHU that going back to the regular prison sounds fantastic._

 

_When he gets back to his cell, Ben unfolds the letter and finds it’s a whole page, more than he was expecting. Ben reads it a paragraph at a time, in small pieces, but not small enough it feels like nothing, and he makes the time go faster that way. He breaks it up over days and meals, splitting it so he doesn't get to read the last of it until after he's made his own testimony, but he starts it the night he gets the letter from Luke._

 

Ben,

 

We’re celebrities now. The first couple of days there were reporters outside my apartment. The big papers run it in their local sections so that’s not so bad, the story won’t go national I think, but the local newspapers and tabloids are having a field day with it. They go back and forth between calling us Romeo and Juliet and Bonny and Clyde. Who would’ve thought that we’d end up like this; another tragic love story to match the famous ones. Not me. Or maybe that’s not true.

 

_That last sentence circles around in his brain while Ben forces himself not to read on. Maybe it’s not true. If Rey saw this coming, she has a talent for foresight that borders on the unbelievable. He’d thought they would fade, either because he wound up dead or Rey finally tired of his bullshit or because they managed to pass into obscurity by getting out. The infamy of being Kylo Ren had had its advantages - the respect and fear he’d earned and used as a tool. But this kind of poisoned fame is uncomfortable. He doesn’t like being a household name, a topic discussed over dinner._

_He paces and props his back against the wall, sits holding himself against it on bent knees until his legs burn, and waits until they bring him a meal to let himself read on._

 

I think I knew I was going to fall back into this with you before I even showed up at that motel. I never stopped loving you, you know. But I meant what I said in that courtroom, I’d do it all over again. I have no idea what’ll happen but I know I’ll always love you and I’ll always be here for you. Whatever the sentence, I’ll see you as much as I can, we’ll get married so we can have conjugal visits. Babe, I know how that sounds and I know you’re making a face now but just go with it, okay? I read up on it, once you get transferred to a medium security prison, if you’re being good and don’t get into fights, we can have around twelve hours together once or maybe even twice a year. I know it’s not much really, but it’s enough, right? Better than nothing, right?

 

_It’s not enough and they both know it. Rey wouldn’t be so desperate to get him to agree it is if she didn’t know it herself. They’d been nearly insatiable after being apart for a year, Ben can’t imagine trying to cram all of that into a twelve hour window, and it’d be no way to live a life. Still, he can’t say it doesn’t bring a bit of warmth to his chest to know Rey would do it over again. He would too, changing the ending maybe, but all the struggle and heartache is somehow worth it._

_Love must’ve made him insane, he thinks, huffing a quiet laugh to himself as he stares up at his ceiling. He lost count of how many reps he’s done, and he’s not allowed to read the next paragraph until he hits seventy five, so he takes a breaks, breathes slowly on his back, then starts again._

 

I still hate this, I really do. The thought of having only one night with you in a year; I can’t breathe but I must be positive. I hope they’ll be lenient with you. Who knows maybe it’s just five years? Five years is alright. I’ll be 29 then, that’s okay. It’s enough time to learn something else, get a new job and save up. I got suspended. I don’t think I want to work for the FBI anymore. I don’t think they’d let me, anyway. Maybe I’ll go back to engineering. I know I gotta move to Brooklyn, I can’t afford my apartment anymore. Maybe I’ll get a place closer to wherever they’ll transfer you, so I can come and see you every week. You get four hours a month of visitation at least, we can space that out. But I already browsed the guidelines and bad luck: I’m not allowed to wear revealing clothes, so no crop tops and spandex for me (they actually say that online, no spandex...who’d even do that?).

 

_Ben can’t imagine Rey in a crop top or spandex. Well, that’s not strictly true. He could imagine her in one of those tops that look like they’re made of lace, folding around her torso in soft patterns and ending above her navel. He could see Rey in clothes fit for someone her age, enjoying herself, and maybe, in some universe if not this one, Ben could see himself beside her, being dragged along for the ride. It’s a nice little fantasy, much better than any sleazy getup the rules no doubt imagined._

_Rey's been conducting herself with almost vengeful poise during the last days of the trial. She'd sat ramrod straight for Ben's testimony, only occasionally letting her emotions slip. He'd told them all, god and the government and everyone, how Rey had reminded him of who he was supposed to be. How he'd fallen in love with her and let her show him he could try for more than what he'd fought his way into with the First Order. He endured the prosecution's sharp questions and accusations, even managed not to throw a fist when the man had insinuated that Ben had somehow brainwashed Rey into thinking he was a good man, like a second coming of the Manson girls. His response had made Luke sigh heavily, but Ben had never promised not to tell the court that he told Rey he wasn't a good guy or that Rey could and nearly had kicked his ass six ways to Sunday. He even got a laugh for that one, and Ben won't apologize for it if only because it made the prosecution turn an angry pink and bite out "No further questions."_

_Moving isn’t a bad idea, he muses while hanging by his fingertips from the ledge of the heavy steel door, especially if Rey means to keep their relationship as normal as possible with him locked away. But he’ll be damned if she has to downsize for money reasons. It’s not like Ben’s doing anything with his money in here. And if by some miracle he does manage to scrape by with only five years, he’d like to have a real house to come home to when he gets out. Not that he’d expect Rey to be some kind of homemaker, but they’ve both suffered enough. If their ending isn’t happy, they at least deserve a soft epilogue._

_He pulls himself up one more time, the precarious grip making pullups much more difficult, and drops heavily, working out his shoulders for a moment before fetching her letter from the bed and reading the last paragraph._

 

One day you’ll be out, baby, and then we’ll live. You just gotta make sure you stay safe in there, I never want to worry about you dying ever again. But it’ll be alright, I know it. We just need to stick out the bad times. Okay? Promise me you won’t try to push me away? We can do this, I know we can. I love you, so so much.

 

Yours, always,

Rey

 

_It’s tucked under his pillow again when he’s woken up, and Ben must’ve miscalculated the hour, because he meant to already be awake when they came to fetch him for the reading of his sentence. He has a different suit for this court date, one that’s a navy blue that Luke says makes him look more reasonable, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Rey doesn’t bother with appearances this time, sitting as close as she possibly can to Ben and Luke’s backs. It doesn’t matter what they do now, his fate is already decided, just needs to be read out to make it official._

_His list of offenses is rattled off, the decisions following, and Ben can’t do the mental math fast enough to figure out what he’s ended up with, but they find him not guilty in the case of child trafficking, and honestly, that’s good enough. His sentence is fifteen years all told, not quite the five Rey hoped for, but not nearly the twenty five to life Ben had been dreading._

_Rey still looks pleased when he turns around, leaning over the waist-high barrier between them to kiss him, and Ben ducks and returns it, hand in her hair. She follows him and Luke to meet afterward, and the guard who tries to stop her going in with them surely regrets it deeply. Ben isn’t particularly polite in his insistence that Rey be allowed inside, not now that the trial is over. It’s a light at the end of the tunnel, distant though it is, and Ben thinks this might be what Rey feels like, being able to hope for things like she does._

 

_It lasts through his meeting with Luke, Rey listening in and nodding along with his outline for how things ought to go now that the sentencing has been passed down. It even lasts Ben through getting back to the prison and compounding the good news by the guards telling him he’s going back to the standard security block. Ben’s back in his old cell  fee days later, waiting for them to decide which prison will be his permanent stay, but that isn’t the notice he gets. Instead, he gets notice that they’ve decided to try him in Florida, where he'll likely be facing_ _the death penalty._

_Ben’s not surprised, but he is disappointed, and that’s honestly the worst part. What good is hope if it’s just going to be taken away?_

 

***

 

The first two days after it’s announced that Ben will be tried in Florida by Florida state law and prosecution is not quietly preparing to get him on trial for his life, Rey can’t get out of bed. The first day she is unable to move because her whole body is cramping up with anger and agony and the second day, she has one of the worst hangovers of her life, because she’d had a bottle of whiskey the night before. Just to be able to sleep. It had been somewhat calm hours between the passing of Ben’s New York sentence and this horrible news. She’d almost made peace with him being gone for fifteen years, had almost smiled imagining him getting out when she was 38, technically still young enough to build a real life with him. But then they went and pulled the rug out from under her again.

 

How is this fair? A line from her last letter to Ben flashes up time and time again before her mind’s eye. I never want to worry about you dying ever again. He’s survived getting stabbed by a threat and now he’s right back to having his life in the balance. She can’t grasp it, can’t explain it to herself. If she’d ever been religious, now at the latest she would’ve fallen from faith. What god would give her back the man she loves, breathe life into him again, just to threaten to take it all away again just weeks later? How can that be? How is it that a man who turned his life around by his own volition, who pulled himself out of drug addiction and criminality by his hair, who saved eleven children from a fate worse than death and every other one that would’ve come after, can not get away with fifteen years behind bars? Yes, he committed crimes but the people he killed were never innocent. Fine, being in the drug trade causes havoc in people’s lives, fair enough, all his stunts in prostitution weren’t easy to excuse if not impossible - but Ben atoned. Hasn’t he? Hasn’t he done enough good to at least have a life? Doesn’t he deserve that much? Doesn’t she?

 

After the crying comes anger and after that, Rey snaps into survival mode. She books flights to Florida for her and Luke, drives up to Ben’s safe house to collect some funds and the details to his accounts and comes back feeling a little better and resolved to not accept whatever it is they want to do to him. The following days, she reminds herself to stay focused and hopeful. She has to think positive and trust that everything will turn out right. There is no other way. The Miami prosecution is getting everything set up, putting everything in place. So is Luke. So is she. When the time comes, she’ll be ready.

 

With a week to go until Ben is transferred to Florida, Rey drives over to Maz’s Castle to see one more friendly face before she’ll be faced by more nosy press and snarly state lawyers. She moves quickly about the place but can’t help glancing up to the mezzanine, to that balcony railing where she came apart in Kylo Ren’s hands and woke up the next morning beside Ben Solo again. She wants that time back more than she ever wanted anything in her life.

 

Maz is bent over paperwork when Rey knocks and enters the little back room where - a lifetime ago - Ben and she got ready for her first pushing gig. Maz smiles kindly and her voice is full of sympathy.

“Oh, sweet child,” she says, “come in, sit down, let me make you some tea.”

“I can’t stay long,” Rey says apologetically. She wants nothing more but it’s best if she doesn’t linger around Maz for too long.

“Gotta get back to your man?” she asks her, still smiling kindly. “Fifteen years is not so bad, starchild, you’ll have him back before you know it.”

Rey appreciates the sentiment but Maz doesn’t know yet what’s going to happen in a week. “They’re gonna try him in Florida,” she tells her. “For his life.”

Maz gives a pause, loaded with understanding and her fair, dark features harden just like Rey’s did because she too must think it’s unnecessarily harsh and unfair. “I see,” she nods and gestures for Rey to sit opposite her, a trace of business in her demeanor suddenly.

“I’m here to ask you for something,” Rey says, going on to business herself. “Something no one can know about.”

“What do you need?” Maz says and Rey takes a deep breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end and trust me when I say we are all struggling through this together. It's hard to let go of a project this big, and we'll miss it when it's over. Hopefully the length of this chap somewhat makes up for how behind schedule we are on it. Thank you all for reading and reviewing and generally being awesome!


	15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last...our last chapter!!
> 
> We are so sorry to have kept you waiting so long but real life has a knack for pushing into writing plans, as you can probably imagine. But still, we are here, with a quite big lump in our throats, presenting you with our last chapter.
> 
> We hope you enjoy it and follow Ben and Rey happily on the end of this adventure.

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: [I’d Burn the City Down (To Show You the Light)]**

 

Going to Florida is easier than Rey would’ve thought. She gives up her rented apartment, with all her furniture and boils her possessions down to one large cardboard box and three suitcases. Her job is as good as lost anyway and so she puts in her resignation, faced with a disgruntled Poe, who asks her to reconsider. Because he might be “fucking furious” with her for lying but overall, the work she did was top bar and she could still go places if she just stepped away from Ben Solo and took a couple of years for the dust to settle on her regional fame and then come back swinging. She’s not interested in a life without Ben, so she declines.

“And there is no way to sway you?” Poe looks at her like he’s losing a friend, or a daughter, rather than an employee.

“I’m afraid not,” she says and doesn’t have to fake faint regret and sadness. “If you’d taken Luke’s offer to make Ben a special consultant, then yeah. But that chance is gone and done with so...I’m sorry, Poe. I just, you know, I have to do this, I have to stand by him. He’s a good man.”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” he says and Rey almost laughs, because if she had a dollar for every time someone had said that to her, she wouldn’t have to touch Ben’s money at all.

“I know,” she smiles and shrugs. “Take care, my friend.”

“Rey, before you go,” Poe says, catching her by the elbow as she turns to leave, “there is something I need to tell you. It feels weird letting you leave for Miami without you knowing and I don’t want you finding it out from someone else.”

“What?” she asks, looking up at her now-former boss quizzically, having zero inclinations what he might want to reveal.

“What with all the time I spent with Finn over these last few months, something happened, between us I mean,” he begins and in this second, Rey remembers that he once told her that he’s gay. It never mattered between them whom either loved, so she’d forgotten but now, the way he looks at her, the information seems suddenly relevant.

“He moved in with me,” he continues, “after you came back and we just...we fell in love. I wanted you to know that and to hear it from me.”

It takes Rey a second to process this information but in hindsight, it does make sense. She hadn’t known Finn was interested in men and maybe, before Poe, he hadn’t been, but things fall into place somehow, knowing both of them - how Finn’s easy kindness would mix with Poe’s good humour, how her ex’s generous affection would fill the holes in her former boss’s life, how Poe would push and nurture Finn to the great things he was undoubtedly meant for. It was right. The two of them. Weird for her now, and probably just so for a while, but right. So she nods and smiles at him.

“I can see it,” she says and reaches for his hand on her arm, squeezing it for goodbye, “I wish you all the best. Tell Finn that I’m sorry and I’ll be thinking of you.”

She thinks about them indeed, on the plane to Miami, in her hotel room, on the first days in the heat, the one time on the beach. Whenever she isn’t thinking about Ben and what’s ahead, she thinks of Finn and Poe and how they found each other, despite everything she did. Or maybe because of it. And that might even be some small consolation. The proof that love always finds a way. Maybe that’s a promising sign for her and Ben, she has to believe that at least. The only time she gets to visit Ben in prison, she tries to see the good side to it; that now there is no more anxiety of being made, that she can walk into that place and not hide her face but stand and sit in the packed visitation hall, every seat taken by another inmate and their family, and be herself. It feels very good not to lie anymore and she’s resolved to never go back to that. She loves him and she doesn’t care if anybody knows.

There’s a certain camaraderie between the women in the room, she can feel it like an undercurrent. Especially the ones bouncing children on their laps or adjusting little baseball caps on little heads as they face Dads they never see. Rey could be one of them, maybe, in just a few years time. Making it alone and raising a family out there by herself, the man she loves, the father of her children, incarcerated. The vision runs like a shiver down her spine that only ceases when Ben is led to her table, wrists and ankles bound as always. He looks a bit better, like he slept a few hours longer than usual and that’s at least one tiny, good thing. 

“How are you?” she asks once he’s sitting up straight and locking eyes with her. “It’s a bit of a step up, huh?”

“Can’t disagree there,” Ben smiles but it’s one of those smiles that are just for her benefit. “Nobody much remembers me around here, it’s kinda nice. New York feels...really far away.”

“I got a tan,” she blurts randomly, because she doesn’t know what to say to him anymore about the whole prison thing. It’s all been said, it’s all horrible and she wants it all to just go away. So she opts for small talk, to pretend things are mundane and normal. “After two days.”

“Well, then the change of scene was good for something,” Ben tries hard to match her tone but he’s only successful when his gaze drops down her frame and his tongue darts out quickly to swipe over his plump lower lip in a way that makes Rey wish they were alone. “Did you tan everywhere?”

“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?” Rey teases right back through the lump in her throat and he shifts in his seat, closer to her, and hooks his ankles around hers which is enough to make her gasp.

“I would,” he says, throaty and low and it tugs at everything she has been forced to keep buried forever now.

“It’s been way too long,” she says before hiding her face for a second, trying to get her cheeks to stop glowing like a street light. “127 days to be exact. But who’s counting?”

It catches him more seriously than she intended it to and he’s fixing her intensely: “You shouldn’t be, you’ll drive yourself nuts like that.” 

“I know, I know. I was trying to lighten the mood,” she says a little sheepish. “Trying to be flirty...or walk the line between that and needy missing-you-a-lot-girlfriend.”

Ben glances up to check if anyone’s going to call him on the No Touching rule, then when he deems it safe enough, he slides his hands across to touch hers so it’s casual enough to go unnoticed. “Hey, you’re allowed to be...all of that. I miss the hell out of you, too. And not just getting to see your tan lines.”

“It’s just not getting any easier,” Rey sighs and slips her hand under the table to sneak it onto his knee and squeezes, her voice lowered to a whisper. “The...physical side of missing you. It’s...a little maddening.”

“Do you -” Ben starts and stops, like it physically pains him to say it, but he seems to feel he has to, “you know we can call it quits if it gets too much.” Faced with her immediate shocked expression, he rushes on, hurrying obviously to not send the wrong message. “I don’t want to, but you’re right it’s a lot to handle, and we both know it’s probably not going to get any easier over time. I thought I was gonna go insane not being able to touch you when we were living together, but this is...something else.”

“Ben, it’s not sex that I miss,” she whispers, “It’s sleeping with  _ you _ . I’m prepared to wait it out, I just...I just want you to know that I still want you. That’s not changing. Quite the opposite, really.”

Ben’s expression softens into something that’s not at all what someone ought to look like who’s trying to tough it out in prison. “I wish they’d let me kiss you,” he says. “I want to, right now.” It’s hard keeping her hands to herself. “You know there’s never gonna be anyone I feel this way about, I know you feel it, too. I just want you to be happy.”

“I will be,” she promises. “I’m working on it.”

“Okay. I’m glad - I’m glad you’re safe, and I’m glad we did this,” he says, even grinning a little bit. “Whatever anybody else says, we’re heroes. Thank you, for…I love you.”

“I love you more,” she says, like a sappy teenager, but it’s probably the truth. “It’ll all be alright, I promise you.”

“Miss,” a voice breaks into their moment and Rey wants to strangle someone - preferably the guard who just spoke and who is eyeing her like she’s about to break Ben out of prison when she is just caressing his leg. “Hands on the table please.”

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly to the thin-lipped guard. “I have to leave, it was just to say goodbye.”

“I guess I’ll see you at the trial then,” Ben says, commanding her attention back and his features harden again, twisting back into his prison persona. He stands and waits for her to rise. His face says that she should as well take her time, he doesn’t want her to go.

She pulls herself up by his hand and kisses him quickly without warning and with no regard for any guard anywhere. 

“I’ll see you,” she says. “Ben? Can you do something for me?”

“Yeah, anything,” he replies with no hesitation.

“Can you smile for me, like you mean it? I...need that,” she says under her breath. “To take with me.”

Ben’s face lights up and moves to heed her command, letting a grin break freely over his face, memories ghosting across his face that she can almost see. The nights at his apartment, the mini vacation at his cabin, all those mornings he woke up to her setting things in motion, all the nights they could’ve had since. 

“You sure that’s all you want?” he asks her, biting his lips lightly.

“Nothing else we can do here that doesn’t end with me getting a big fat fine for creating a disturbance…” she says and he stares at her for a second, smile not really dimming, licks his lips and his gaze flickers between her and the guard like he is planning something. 

“Can I - Come on, man, they’re thinking about trying me for life,” he says, more to himself than to her and then sort of shrugs at the guard to move forward and kiss her for real.

It’s been way too long since he’s kissed her like that and it’s cheesy, even in her mind but it feels like ambrosia. She lives again, with his lips on hers and his tongue moving in quickly to connect, to taste again and it’s over way too soon. Just when she wraps her arms around him, pushing even further up onto her tip toes, he is tapped out by guard and lets her go too easily with a half-hearted apology to the man.

“Sorry, leaving,” she says to the guard and then turns right back to her boyfriend with a dirty glare in her eye that he meets with smiling smugness. “I’m taking that home right now.”

“Good,” he says and she wants him more than words can say.

Back at the hotel, Rey tries putting her mind off of the trial and tries focussing on the memories with Ben instead, trying to keep the happy ones safe and untainted by what is happening at this very moment. It’s almost tedious but it’s better than the alternative which would be to deal. And she refuses that, she doesn’t accept what is happening and so she doesn’t need to make her peace with it. It’s as simple as that.

She barely sleeps and that doesn’t change for the next couple of days, especially after it seeps through to Luke that they are gunning for the death penalty in earnest. It twists her gut into a knot that won’t come apart, even past all her resolve and her plans. Luke remains steadfast through it all, insisted that they won’t be able to get death past the jury that is sympathetic after Ben’s semi-fame in New York. Rey can only hope he’s right. The trial itself is even more tedious than the former, with memories fuzzy from time and distance and quite a few people obviously lying to save their own skins. But Luke is well prepared and manages to discredit nearly every out-there horror story about what terrifying deeds Kylo Ren had done while in Miami. Ben braves it all the way he had the New York trial; he looks at Rey and locks his gaze on hers and that’s how it works for him. Rey loses any kind of ability to objectively measure his chances and the situation itself, she is stuck in fretting and panicking and trying to be strong for as long as it takes. It’s not for very much longer in any case but some time within the last half year, it has started to feel like sitting in a courtroom with the man she loves on trial for the rest of his life. It’s exhausting.

***

_ By the time the sentencing comes down, it feels like Ben has been pulled wire-thin, always waiting for someone else to decide for him. He’s almost past caring what they give him, so long as it’s over and no one makes Rey watch him die. He’s not really living anyway, not in the spaces between seeing her. He’d thought his life was hers before, but it’s true in an entirely different way after these months. Ben isn’t really a person beyond the man that belongs to Rey Kenobi. _

_ That’s what he’s learned about himself in prison, Ben muses idly as the jury members file in for the reading of his sentence. He’s learned that Ben doesn’t exist. Kylo Ren was his own person, efficient and unapologetic and slowly tearing himself apart. The boy named Ben stopped existing as surely as Kylo Ren started, and it’s impossible to dredge him back up. He can’t be the boy Rey knew, and perhaps he’s late to the game figuring that out, but Rey has always been smarter than him. She probably knows. _

_ She must, to have decided to be in love with all of him. Still, as much as he’d railed against her to acknowledge his evils as well as the good she sees in him, now that he’s shed the worst parts of himself, there’s not much left. The sixteen year old boy is only a starting point, and truth be told, it’d be much easier to find out who Ben Solo truly is if he weren’t spending his days in prison. In there, he has to play a part. _

_ He’s been playing parts so damn long, the only thing that feels real anymore are the points in his life Ben can trace through Rey. He was who he meant to be for the few years they grew up together. He definitely existed in her arms, in the dark and whispering the life story he despises. Ben is only there in fits and starts between trying to reconcile what he feels with what he has been. Maybe he won’t be real until they let him out. Maybe by that point, there won’t be anything left but pieces. _

_ The jury sits, Luke puts his hand on Ben’s shoulder - support or worry or comfort, Ben isn’t sure. One woman stands to read off the charges and sentencing, looking into the empty space in the center of the courtroom to deliver it, and Ben knows already it’s not good. Heart in his throat, he waits for the words to leave her mouth.  _ Hereby sentenced to death by lethal injection on such and such a date at such and such a place.

_ That isn’t what she says, however. Instead, she says something about twenty years and Ben didn’t know he wanted to live as badly as he apparently does, because the rest of it blanks out into white noise as it hits him that they aren’t going to execute him. Everything else falls by the wayside and he lets go of where he’d been unconsciously gripping the nice fabric of his slacks in fists. And maybe that’s who Ben is, somebody who wants to live. _

_ When he whips around to look at Rey, he’s not sure what he’s expecting. Relief would be just as likely as devastation, knowing Rey is more optimistic than him, but as likely as him to be crushed by the worst outcome. The expression on her face is neither of those options, but instead a cross between resignation and determination, the same look she’d had the day she’d taken the stand to testify against all good sense. _

_ More than anything, he’d like to go to her, tell Rey it’s going to be okay, he’s gone over and over appeals and parole and every possible contingency plan. They can figure something out, Ben’s sure Rey will be more than willing to do whatever it takes to shorten his sentence. What he gets is less than ideal. _

_ In the ensuing chaos - reporters, community members, and all manner of people who  _ don’t matter _ getting a shouted word in and standing - Ben loses sight of Rey. He shrugs Luke off easily enough, trying to use his height to his advantage, but the crowd is too much and the bailiff clearly wants to shuffle him out as soon as possible. _

_ “You’ll see her soon enough,” Luke says placatingly, holding onto Ben’s arm to stop his try at pushing into the crowd toward where she’d been standing. _

_ Ben nearly snarls at his uncle before he can think better of it. This should be  _ their _ moment. It’s utter bullshit that they’re keeping him from seeing Rey, especially with everyone here knowing what she is to him, what they are to each other. But the crowd parts for a moment and she’s...not there. _

_ Ben can only blink in stunned surprise for a few seconds. Rey had been right there, in the second row back, dressed as sensibly as usual, hair up, easy to spot. He lets Luke pull him away in his shock, somehow not able to process the idea that Rey isn’t there waiting for him. _

_ “But it’s over,” Ben mutters absently. They should be celebrating at least that much, but he can’t even find Rey, let alone get to her and wrap her in his arms as he’d like to do. _

_ “Yes, Ben, it’s over,” Luke agrees, walking alongside the bailiff to the back of the courthouse where a transport vehicle will be waiting for him. “You’ll see Rey soon enough, I promise.” _

_ He can’t say he cooperates as well as he does because of any intention of being on his best behavior. Ben is still trying to figure why Rey would have gone. She’d stuck with him this far, been his rock through both trials as well as the mess that preceded it. It makes no sense for her to leave now. He wishes he could erase the last conversation they’d had when she’d visited him and, like some kind of self-sacrificial idiot, he’d offered the option of calling it quits. _

_ Maybe that’s what did it, he thinks, watching numbly as the guards close the truck doors behind him after securing Ben’s hands. He does the quick math and acknowledges the reality that he’ll be in his sixties when his sentence ends, if they don’t find any way to shorten it. It’s an entire life lived apart. He can’t ask that of Rey, it’s too much. _

_ Angry with himself, Ben kicks at the bench seat across from him, slamming his heel into the metal and relishing the near-painful reverberations up his leg.  _ Stupid _. Of course she left, even Rey has to see he isn’t worth throwing her life away. Selfishly, stupidly, Ben had thought she’d be stubborn enough for the both of them to make it work. Dropping his head into his hands, he tries to reconcile himself with the truth - he isn’t enough. He has nothing to offer Rey but heartache and distance, a lifetime of waiting, and it’s nowhere near enough. He should have really accepted that sooner. It what he gets for having faith for once. _

_ The truck stops with a jerk, making Ben look up, rocking with the sharp motion. The drive to the courthouse seemed much longer getting there this morning, but his perception might very well be skewed. Ben’s no stranger to losing time, so he mentally shrugs it off. It’s not like a few more or less minutes are going to make a difference when the rest of his life has lost the glimmer of hope it once had.  _

_ He’s in the process of settling back so they can escort him out following the ever-present check of his cuffs when the door opens and Rey is standing in the space. Ben thinks he must be hallucinating. It’s a vivid hallucination, climbing into the truck with him in a baseball cap and sunglasses, shutting the door behind her before pounding her fist twice on the partition between them and the driver. The truck takes off a little faster than before, and Ben starts to think he might not be losing his damn mind when Rey takes off the hat and glasses, sitting across from him. _

_ “Rey?” Her name comes out strangled and disbelieving, which Ben feels is appropriate. “What the hell is this?” _

_ “I’m breaking you out of prison,” she explains, a wild look on her face. “Or...intercepting you on your way there, rather.” It feels like the first time seeing her again, it’s so absurdly good to know she hasn’t abandoned him. Relief floods into him, so hard his eyes sting a little. Rey wasn’t in the courtroom, but she’s  _ here _ , impossibly, and Ben isn’t really following in the mess of trying to get it through his own thick skull that Rey hasn’t given up on him. Quite the opposite really. _

_ Nearly leaking reckless energy in opposition to Ben’s stunned silence, Rey’s face is alight while the rest of her can hardly hold still, fidgeting with her subar disguise while her eyes flicker to his face in between checking the windows and doors repeatedly. Ben is torn between wanting to put his hands on her to make her hold still and doing it to make sure she’s real. But of course she is, only Rey would come up with a harebrained scheme like hijacking a prison transport. _

_ “This is a very stupid idea, Rey,” he hisses. Is the driver in on it or is he one of the few idiots who doesn’t know what the infamous Kylo Ren’s girlfriend looks like? “Do you have a plan?” Rey follows his gaze to the window and the driver who doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to them. _

_ “Ben, this is Todd.” She gestures vaguely at the back of the man’s head, like she’s in some sort of hurry. Or perhaps it’s nerves. “He’ll be our driver for a little while longer. Until we switch cars and drive to a private airport where a charter plane is waiting - off books and off record.” Rey bites her lip, one knee jiggling nervously. “I have a plan. And a backup plan and a backup-backup plan in case that doesn’t work out.” _

_ “You’re...insane,” Ben laughs. It’s starting to set in that Rey truly does mean to get him to freedom, damn the consequences. And that she very well might succeed. God, he loves her so much. “Okay, so we’re doing this. You got a plan for these?” he asks, holding up the cuffs chaining his wrists together and to the bench seat between his legs. _

_ “Yup.” She produces cable cutters from a bag over her shoulder. They don’t look like much, but the chain links give after a few seconds of pressure, snapping neatly in two. The longer chain slips free as his wrists are separated and Rey hands over the cutters. “I’ll let you do the precision work. I don’t want to cut off your hands.” _

_ “Yeah, pretty fond of those,” he mutters under his breath. Working through the metal of his cuffs is a little more tricky, so Ben starts chipping away at them as he goes on. “Can I ask where the hell we’re going? And who, uh...Todd is?” _

_ “We’re going away. I’ll tell you everything as soon as we’re alone.” Ben chooses to ignore how cagey Rey’s being in favor of noticing her emphasis on ‘we’. It’d be enough if she planned on helping him disappear, but she’s coming with him. “Todd’s hired help. One of Maz’s most trusted.” Rey sits up to open the window between them. “Say hi, Todd.” _

_ “Hey,” he tosses over his shoulder, raising a hand in a vague greeting without taking his eyes off the road. _

_ “He organized the transit,” Rey goes on, sliding the window mostly closed. “We switched the vans. The one really meant for you should be arriving at the courthouse any minute. Car trouble on the way, you know how it is. We have a headstart of maybe twenty minutes.” _

_ Ben runs through the logistics of it all - twenty minutes head start and he doesn’t really know how long they’ve been driving. At best, they’ve still got a solid ten minutes before anyone will be looking for them in earnest. Rey isn’t explaining much about her apparently neurotic planning, but the implication is that she has everything prepared for them to disappear together. _

_ “How long have you had this planned?” he asks, finally shaking off his baffled willingness to take things in stride. “What if they’d let me off?” It’d be a bit of a challenge to halt these kinds of preparations on a dime and it’s impossible for Rey to have known what the outcome of the trial would be beforehand. _

_ “I went to Maz right after they announced the trial here.” Rey looks down for a moment, fiddling with the bag still in her hands. “I… I’d have done it for anything over five more years. It’s not  _ fair _ ,” she says, slamming her own hands into her lap in indignation. “Ten years would’ve been doable. Not a day longer. Twenty-five...that’s just not...it’s not fair.” _

_ “Okay, sweetheart, that’s… Okay,” Ben soothes, biting back the instinct to remind her life is rarely fair. He drops the mangled remains of his handcuffs to the floor, giving in to the urge to kick them a little spitefully. “You know we can’t go back, after this. Ever.” Of course  _ Ben _ doesn’t even have anything to go back to, but Rey still has a chance at a life. Or she did, before this plan was set into action. She still might, if they haven’t figured out the switch has been made already. _

_ “I know,” Rey says, unwavering. “We’re not too far out yet, either. You still have a choice. We can take you to prison and no one will ever know,” she goes on, echoing his thoughts in a hesitant voice. “But I’ve decided. Months ago.” _

_ “Rey,” he starts, and doesn’t get any further. Rey cuts in over him, talking right over whatever she must’ve heard in that one syllable. _

_ “I’d just ask you to please not make me live without you for twenty-five years.” It’s blatant emotional blackmail, but it’s not like Ben actually minds. He never would have turned her down anyway. _

_ “I choose you, always,” he says, ducking to meet Rey’s eyes surely. Ben’s done being a coward and trying to choose for Rey. He’ll just choose to stick by her instead. If that meant atoning like a good citizen so they could have a real life at the end of it, so be it. “If you say you can get us out, I’ll follow you.” _

_ “Okay. Good.” Ben can hear the relief in her voice, like he ever could’ve done anything but follow her. He couldn’t even stay away when he’d wanted to. “We’ll switch cars soon. Until then…” Rey trails off, scooting forward until her knees press into his, finally leaning forward, up just enough to take Ben’s face in her hands and kiss him properly. _

_ Ben sighs into her mouth, a first breath all over again, knowing he doesn’t have to stop. There are no guards or rules or reasons why he should stop himself from easing Rey’s mouth open and pulling her bottom lip between his teeth, worrying it gently. No reason at all not to put his hands around her waist and drag her forward and up into his lap. _

_ “Yeah,” he says, breaking for a breath by his own choice, knowing he can come back. “When I said ‘insane’, I meant genius.” _

_ “We’re not done yet, we might still both end up in jail.” Rey’s voice is muffled where she’s speaking into his neck, clearly unwilling to let him go at all. “I kinda want to rip your clothes off, just in case.” _

_ “Don’t mind me, guys,” Todd’s voice filters back from the driver’s seat, dry as a bone. “I’ve seen and heard worse.” _

_ “Shut up, Todd,” Rey shoots back, squirming a bit at the drawn attention and making Ben press his forehead to her collarbone and whine. It’s been way too long since he’s had her this close. “Eyes on the road.” _

_ “Aye.” _

_ “You’re a class act,” Ben calls forward, possibly a little punch drunk, and doing his damnedest not to thrust up against his girlfriend, the love of his life, who is liable to actually fuck him in the back of a hijacked police vehicle. He’s certainly not going to stop her if she tries. “Don’t tear any clothes and we might have a deal,” he says in a quieter tone to Rey. “How far off did you say the car was?” _

_ “Under that bridge up ahead there,” Todd answers, because evidently Ben’s voice wasn’t lowered as much as he’d thought it was. _

_ Rey groans at the answer, burying her face in Ben’s shoulder. He puts his fingertips up the back of her shirt, just because he can, and because if they don’t have time, he still wants the chance to touch her skin. Just in case. _

_ “If this all works out, we’ve got all the time in the world. Let me just - ” He slides his hands a few more inches under her clothes, maneuvering for a kiss. Savoring the moment, he draws it out, lips gentle and thorough over hers while his palms skid up Rey’s back, almost to her shoulders, before descending again to settle with his thumbs edging under her pants just at the arch of her hipbones. _

_ Rey follows him, moaning and winding her hands in his hair, shifting closer. Some part of him feels extremely shallow for it, but Ben’s more than happy to have her legs around him, Rey’s breath mingling with his, her breasts pressed against his chest. He doesn’t want to ‘just’ anything. What he wants, more than anything, is to seize the moment with both hands and reacquaint himself with every inch of Rey’s body over the next couple of hours. He almost can’t remember exactly the angle her back makes when she’s about to come, which is a shame. He’ll have to memorize it better this time. _

_ They both pull away reluctantly when the car slows, hesitating just on the edge of breaking contact. Rey’s eyes are still closed when Ben opens his, her breath panting just slightly and a crease of frustration between her brows. He can relate. _

_ “Rey, you’re on a clock,” the driver reminds them, not unkindly. “Hate to be a buzzkill, but you gotta keep moving.” _

_ “Let’s go, crazy,” Ben says, squeezing his hands on her hips affectionately. “We’ve only got one shot.” _

_ They don’t throw it away, exiting the truck at speed, Ben nearly tripping over Rey on their way out, her hand in his. He sneaks a look back at the mess of scrap metal that was his cuffs as he slams the door shut, and catches himself grinning like a child. The last time he felt this much possibility was when he’d left California, thought there’s none of the sick feelings of worry and doubt this time around. His vision is full of the back of Rey’s head, leading him to a non-descript sedan waiting for them in the shadow of the overpass. Behind them, the prison transport is speeding away. If they’re lucky, Todd and his ill-begotten truck will give them more of a head start and they’ll be in the clear soon enough. _

_ “There’s a change of clothes for you back there,” Rey says, gesturing to the back seat as she slides into the driver’s seat. “And a pair of glasses. You’ll need to cut your hair and shave on the plane.” Rey pulls onto the freeway before Ben has a chance to think about a seatbelt, so he skips it in favor of reaching for the pile of clothes behind them to start changing. Rey slows to a less conspicuous speed, eyes flicking to where Ben is working his pants down his hips and he decides now is objectively not the time, but it’s gratifying to see nonetheless. _

_ The clothes she’s picked are the opposite of anything he’d normally choose for himself - khaki slacks and an olive green button-down. It’s the ideal set of bland, nonthreatening clothes, topped off by a pair of round, gold-framed glasses. He tosses his court appropriate suit into the back seat after changing and runs a hand through his decidedly overlong hair. _

_ “You got a hair tie or something stashed in here?” _

_ “Glove compartment,” Rey says, pointing blindly. “There’s also our new IDs and passports. Memorize those as soon as possible.” _

_ The direction is unnecessary, Ben already reading over the information on Benedict Marston. Trying the name out, he decides his new identity sounds like some kind of hipster, especially paired with his clothing. He puts up his hair in a sloppy imitation of what Rey had done to it months ago on his couch and settles the large glasses on his nose, turning to her. _

_ “What do you think?” he asks, holding his passport up beside his face. Someone - likely on Maz’s direction, already photoshopped the same pair of glasses onto his face, but it still looks pretty close to his mugshot, in Ben’s personal opinion. _

_ “Think more literal geek and less fashionable nerd, babe,” she says, a weird mix of amused and chastising. _

_ “I can’t change my face,” Ben says with a frown. “And you picked the clothes.” There’s only so much he can do about what he looks like, though he certainly feels like a geek. The scruff on his face only helps. Ben feels about ready to start talking about archaeology or something. Instead of griping, he sets to memorizing his information. _

_ It’s not a difficult task, most of his details only a step or two away from reality, though he runs through his fake address a few times before it sticks. He figures it’s best to go over Rey’s new identity as well, but pauses when he finds their last name and address are both the same. She wouldn’t have made them siblings, so that must mean… _

_ “We’re married,” Ben says blankly. _

_ “Are you mad?” Rey asks softly after a moment of silence. “I just thought it’d be more practical,” she goes on, apologetic. “To be husband and wife. Easier to sell the story of relocating...emigrating together and all that.” _

_ “No, it’s...it’s fine,” Ben says, not meeting her eye though he can almost physically feel her looking at him anxiously. “It’s a good idea.” He turns the matching passports over in his hands, approvingly noting the scuff marks that keep them from looking too suspiciously new. He turns over an idea at the same time. Something that he’d only thought about as an eventuality, now a pressing reality and another choice that’s been taken from him, though with the best of intentions. _

_ “I would’ve, um.” This is stupid, Ben feels like a little boy, unprepared and grasping at the straws of things he’d wanted to work out much differently. “I wanted to ask you myself. One day.” _

_ Beside him, Rey is speechless, the only sounds coming from the car and the road, wind rushing past them quietly. It’s ridiculous, because Rey had already put on paper that they’re legally bound, if the actual marriage license is maybe missing, but Ben’s heart is in his throat anyway. If you haven’t said it, you haven’t done it, and it’s Rey’s word that matters to him, absurdly.  _

_ “I...you can still, do that, I mean. Ask me,” Rey stumbles over her words. “No reason why a married couple can’t renew their vows.” _

_ “Especially if we’re going to be moving to a whole new country,” he says, mostly to himself, for something to say in the awkward moment he’s pulled them into. He fiddles with their paperwork for a handful of seconds. He’d meant to ask her when he’d had a ring and they’d settled somewhat, when Ben could maybe see a future that wasn’t wrapped in prison bars and timed visits. And, well, technically that’s where they are, and although he can’t help but feel like Rey’s inadvertently stolen something from him, Ben’s going to ask anyway. _

_ “So, do you want to marry me?” he blurts out, ungraceful and wearing unfamiliar clothes, running from the police on an interstate he doesn’t know the name of. It’s all wrong, but it’s him and it’s her, and that just might be enough. “I would’ve done something better,” he tacks on hastily, “but with all the - Will you marry me for real? Not just say it’s already happened. I want to marry you. I want to get married to you.” _

_ Rey’s eyes are glassy, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as he looks at her. It’s not fair, that she’s driving and can’t look at him properly for more than a few seconds at a time.  _

_ “You need to stop talking, or I’ll run us off the road,” she sniffs finally, a few tears slipping over onto her cheeks. “I didn’t know. I thought it was pretty much off the table, you know.” Rey bites back a sob and Ben digs his teeth into his bottom lip. The answer should be obvious, but she hasn’t actually answered and it makes his stomach crawl with anxiety. “Yes. Of course. I want nothing more.” _

_ Ben resists the urge to either put his head in his hands or start cursing in relief. Obviously,  _ obviously _ , she would say yes, but it still makes a bubble grow in his chest, something that might never pop and feels a whole hell of a lot like joy. Or maybe hope. Something huge and good and that he wants to protect fiercely. _

_ “Good,” he says, setting the passports and whatnot aside. “Great.” And he has to kiss her, even if it’s only at the edge of her mouth, because he’d rather not die in a fiery crash moments after getting engaged. “We can figure out the details later. It was never off the table. On pause, maybe, but you’re it for me.” The same sort of giddy feeling comes over him as when he’d realized Rey had come back for him in the truck, and he half-swallows an unflatteringly choked laugh as a thought occurs to him. “I gotta find a ring.” _

_ Rey chokes on her own breath at that, clearing her throat and looking embarrassed again. “Further down, in the glove compartment. I had Luke guess your size.” _

_ When he digs further into the detritus of the glove compartment, there are in fact two simple wedding bands, one obviously larger than the other, and a matching gold band with a small and probably fake diamond on it. _

_ “Oh no, we’re getting our own later,” he says, sliding the largest ring onto the proper finger on his left hand, the others held in his palm for now. “Luke’s style and mine are two very different things.” _

_ “They’re not much, but I liked them. I don’t know, it felt good to buy ‘em.” Rey drums her fingers on the steering wheel, blinking back the remains of her tears. “But I want our own. I can’t wait.” Rey turns to give him a look that just about takes his breath away, it’s so determined and possessive. It’s only for an instant before she turns back to watch the road, but Ben can’t stop himself from shifting in his seat and slicking his tongue over his bottom lip in anticipation. _

_ “Can you put it on me?” she asks, left hand crossed over herself so he can reach. _

_ “Happy to.” The diamond goes on first, followed by the plain band, fitting Rey’s finger perfectly in comparison to his slightly too large ring. He presses a kiss to the back of her hand, just above her knuckles and holds on for a second longer than necessary. In his personal opinion, the white gold he has in mind will look much better. Maybe something with sapphires for some color. _

_ “You’re sure?” he asks, letting her hand go. “About all this. We’re breaking a lot of laws.” _

_ Rey nods, steadfast and stubborn, eyes on the road. “I want a life with you. I’m selfish. I know it’s not right, but I don’t care. You saved those kids...in my books, that’s enough to deserve a quiet life away from all the crap.” _

_ Ben isn’t quite sure what he’d do with a quiet life, having never lived one, but he keeps it to himself. It might be nice, not having to check his back all the time for danger, if they can really get away. He knows himself well enough to know he’ll never be happy living a sedentary, useless life, but Ben also knows it would be a hollow existence at best without Rey. There’s work to be done everywhere, he’ll find some use for himself, surely. Maybe even figure out who Ben is now that he isn’t anybody else. Not Kylo Ren, or Leia Organa’s son, or Luke Skywalker’s nephew. Just Ben. And Rey beside him. _

_ “Luke knows, then,” he asks, as the passing thought of his family occurs. “If he helped with the rings…” And it makes Luke’s certainty that he’d see Rey soon enough make more sense in hindsight. _

_ “He doesn’t,” Rey says, surprising him. “I told him I wanted to give you something to remember me by in prison. But Maz has instructions to put us in contact with him once everything has cooled down if he’s receptive.” Rey pauses long enough, chewing on the inside of her cheek, that Ben gets suspicious. She’s going to drop something else on him. “She also had someone plan and oversee the building of our house. It’s not quite finished yet, but it will be. Soon, I hope.” _

_ “You built us a house,” he says, not really asking, more repeating the information to himself and mentally noting that she must’ve listened to him and dipped into his funds, because there’s no way her fed salary even close to covered all this. He might actually be in need of a job after this much. “You really did think this all the way through, didn’t you?” _

_ “I had it built, I just made a collage of what I wanted and Maz handled the rest,” she says. “The house is twenty minutes out of town, by the beach. I’m going to have to learn to live with all that sand, I guess.” _

_ “When are you going to tell me where this house and beach and sand are?” he asks gently, sliding a hand onto her knee and squeezing affectionately. She’s putting off so much nervous energy he can feel it like a weight at his back, the happiness of a few moments ago fading into anxiety over the realities of what they’re doing. _

_ “I’m a little nervous,” she admits, like it isn’t obvious, shuffling slightly in the driver’s seat. “I’ve been worrying that you won’t like it. We’re supposed to make these kinds of decisions together…” _

_ “If it’s a problem, we’ll work it out,” he says firmly. He reserves every right to be annoyed later, but it isn’t like Rey could exactly ask him about whether this or that non-extradition location would be his preference while he’d been on trial or otherwise under the watch of prison guards. “I was more than a little indisposed. And if it’s got you, I’ll probably love it.”  _

_ It’s not an empty reassurance either. Location has rarely mattered much to him in the grand scheme of things. Ben’s learned in his life that people don’t change much just because of their geographical location. And from the sounds of it, this place has the same spirit as his cabin - removed and just theirs, and he can’t see not coming around to it, even if there are bumps in the road. _

_ “So, it’s this tiny little island near Vietnam,” Rey starts, taking his assurance. “But actually over twelve hours by boat from the coast. Pretty remote. It used to be a prison island. I thought that was a nice touch.” _

_ “Not sure I’m crazy about ditching prison for an island prison.” Ben hums thoughtfully. It has the potential to bring back some less than pleasant memories, which he doesn’t want at all. “But I trust you.” _

_ “I got your bed,” Rey hurries to add, like she needs to sweeten the deal. “And I got me, I’ll make it worthwhile.” _

_ “Rey,” he says seriously. “I would’ve gone to prison for the full sentence to do right by you, and been on my best behavior. I’ll deal with the island, so long as we manage to actually make it there. Like I said, we’ll deal with it if and when we get to that point.” _

_ “We will,” Rey says with finality, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. “We have to.” She stays silent for a while, keeping the wheel steady, glancing over to him from time to time but leaving him to his own thoughts. He deliberates saying something more every now and again but he doesn’t know what. Now that they’re quiet, the sheer risks of their plan threatens his composure. _

_ “What was that?” Rey jumps, suddenly and after another ten minutes of dense, nervous silence. “Did you see that?” _

_ “What, no?” he says. “What was it?” _

***

“That car. It just..didn’t you see it get so close and now it’s gone,” she tells Ben, the low key panic that had settled in her stomach as early as last night, wells up like wildfire, eating away at her gut. It had been a silver car, not quite a mini-van but big and still inconspicuous - but it had been driving past them for a while, getting closer at times and falling behind at others, only to now disappear entirely and very abruptly. It’s suspicious, she is sure, she is not just panicking. And if someone is tracking them now, they’re fucked. “Do you think that was a plain clothes guy? D’you think they put an APB out already? D’you think they found us? Shit.”

“Just act normal, don’t speed up, don’t slow down,” Ben says and takes her hand from where she is fiddling with the stick. “If it was, don’t do anything until they hit lights, then book it.” He squeezes lightly and speaks lower, soothing. “It probably wasn’t. We’re high profile and they had no time to organize anything subtle.”

“Shit,” Rey says still although she really tries hearing him and calming herself down but it doesn’t do anything to calm her nerves. She’s on edge all the rest of the way, glancing behind herself, waiting for that car to re-emerge with police cars in tow. And then she is also worried about possible roadblocks, about spikes and guns and being arrested. If they’re caught, they are royally screwed. She doesn’t even want to begin to imagine what will happen should they get booked. Another trial, for Ben who tried to escape justice and for Rey, who helped. That would be news, that would really get them to Bonnie and Clyde-level fame. For a second she ponders if it wouldn’t be better to walk that path to it’s end. If it wasn’t preferable to get shot by the cops rather than being taken in. Ben must somehow sense her dark thoughts, because he puts his hand on her thigh and cranks up the radio. It’s some inconsequential pop song that sounds exactly like the one before and exactly like the one that comes after and Rey drives.

They reach the airfield without the mysterious car making a reappearance but Rey still can’t shake the lingering feeling that someone is coming for them. It lasts through unloading the car and greeting the crew - consisting of just three pilots, through stuffing their few belongings on a seat on the small private plane and driving the car into the wood to cover it with foliage and hide it until, days later, one of Maz’ guys will come to pick it back up. The plan is solid and it’s working, but Rey can’t relax.

“I have a bad feeling about that car, I can’t shake it,” she tells Ben when he gathers the last of his bags from the trunk of the car and puts a huge branch on it, that looks too heavy for him to carry but it doesn’t seem like he’s bothered by that.

“They didn’t follow us, it’s fine,” he says and takes her hand to make her move, kissing her forehead reassuringly. “Come on, the more suspicious you act, the worse off we are. You’re just getting on a plane with your husband, you’ve got all your paperwork, it’s gonna be fine.”

“The whole crew is bribed up to their eyeballs, I’m not worried about them,” Rey says and lets him drag her along. “But if that was a cop and he follows us here, they’ll know we left the country...if they don’t stop us. Okay, just...let’s get on that plane.”

She hears the cars before she sees them. It’s like a buzzing, a swarm of bees trapped in a tin can and it’s only getting louder. They are a hundred feet away from the car when Ben gives a pause and looks at her, understanding.

“Shit, you were right,” he says, when the first of the cars comes into view. It’s precisely the one Rey saw - and whoever is driving it brought reinforcements. 

“Run!” she yells and can’t tell who is pulling at who, only that they both scramble forward, blindly, as the cars approach further.

“Hey!” Ben hollers at one of the pilots smoking on the stairway. “Get this thing up, we gotta go!”

Rey calls out his name, for no reason other than panic but he’s in act fast, think later move, so he plucks her from the ground around her waist and tosses her up onto the stairs the befuddled pilot has set into upward motion. Five cars are now in plain sight, the first one leading and almost at the strip. Rey thinks the driver is going to break through the gate a few seconds before he does and grabs the railing of the stairs tighter.

“Ben, hurry up!” she is screeching by now but it’s little use - with the stairs in a 90 degree angle from the plane and Ben pulling himself up by it with the engines starting, he can’t hear her anyway.

The moment Ben climbs over to her is the moment the first few cars break and plain clothes detectives jump out, weapons raised and shouting. It’s mayhem and Rey is paralyzed, unable to move before Ben grabs her and pulls her into the cabin. Just in time with the first bullet hitting the door that still hangs ajar. The young pilot is white as a sheet and Rey realizes that her bladder almost failed her. Her heart is beating up to her throat, almost drowning out a near hysterical Ben, who jumps to the door.

“Close this motherfucker,” he yells, “fucking hell!”

The pilot listens but he is trembling, it takes Ben’s strength and barely level head to get it closed, another bullet missing his arm and logging into the thick door by an inch. Its impact still echoes in the cabin once it’s sealed. More shots are fired and it needs no saying to the two pilots hastily pushing buttons and pulling levers in the cockpit, to fire up everything they got and get the fuck out of there.

“FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS!” One of them shouts back and then the plane starts driving. Outside, engines shriek as the police get back into their cars. Rey tries to look out of the window but can’t see anything for a long time. When their plane is almost at the starting strip, she can see the first two cars almost catching up with them. She takes Ben’s hand into a death grip and can’t stand to look at him or she’s going to lose it, so she just mutters to herself, broken and desperate. “Go, go, go.”

The speed of the small plane makes her ears pop but at least they are moving, accelerating, the cars outside are still keeping pace but struggling and the one officer that keeps firing at the plane gladly misses anything of importance. All his bullets do is cause metallic booms that carry through the cabin and she thinks she sees more than one ricochet back to the cars and eventually, the shots stop. And then there is hope - real and tangible because her stomach turns in that familiar way it does when the first set of wheels of a plane leaves solid ground. They are taking off. Ben’s fingers clasp hers tighter and she knows neither of them is breathing. 

“Hold onto your seats,” a voice booms over the intercom, “it’s gonna get bumpy in here.”

And he’s not lying, they rise into the air relatively smoothly but as soon as they break into the clouds overhead, the plane shakes and trembles and sputters up higher and Rey glances over to see the color leave Ben’s cheeks. He curses under his breath and lets go of her hand to put it firmly over his mouth.

“Sorry guys,” the third pilot with them in the cabin shrugs. “We would’ve waited for the weather to clear up but-”

The rest of his sentence dissipates into silence at an impatient wave of Ben’s hand. It’s not because he’s being a dick, Rey can see that. He’s just trying not to get sick on his pants. It takes some more restraint and concentration for that until they are through the turbulence and flying above cloud level.

“We’re safely up in the air, headed for Hawaii, gonna arrive in about thirteen hours, so settle in,” the intercom crackles. “We’re going to fly in low and change machines there, and just so you know, that’s going to be illegal. We’ve got a guy in control who’s going to give us a corridor and we’re touching down at a small airport and not leave the airstrip under any circumstances. From there it’s twelve hours to Manila where we leave you.”

“Then we’re gonna fly charter to Vietnam and gotta go through passport control, at the airport, we get a rental and drive to the port and then go another day by ship,” Rey tells Ben, who has stopped looking quite like he’s going to lose his lunch any moment. “We’ll be disgusting by the end of it.”

“But we’ll be free,” he says and smiles tightly with how he’s still a bit green, but it’s the best thing she’s seen in ages.

***

_ Even if Rey has bribed the entire crew well enough that they could probably get away with doing just about anything without a one of them batting an eye, Ben is sick to his stomach long enough for the adrenaline to wear off both of them and they crash hard. There won’t be any fooling around, because within half an hour, Ben is passed out with Rey curled into him, drooling lightly onto his shoulder. They both wake at strange intervals for short periods, to use the bathroom and stretch, once when Rey reminds Ben in a mumble to shave before he forgets and then eventually joins him to cut his hair, but they spend the majority of the flight asleep.  _

_ It’s one of the best come-downs Ben could’ve possibly imagined, given how desperately he’s missed being able to have Rey close. If this were a horribly cliche, swanky private jet complete with a bed, he’s fully confident they would make use of it in exactly the same way as they’re using the seats. Only he wouldn’t have such a crick in his neck. _

_ The plane waiting for them in Hawaii is very similar to the one that took them from Florida, only slightly more rickety and manned by a single pilot. He must’ve been paid off very handsomely as well, for as cheerfully as he welcomes them onto the plane. Caught up on sleep, Ben and Rey spend most of the flight catching up on the things they hadn’t been able to say before. He pries out of Rey how Finn had taken finding out about them and is blazingly angry for all of a few seconds before it fades away. She looks so damn sad to be losing a friend that Ben doesn’t have the heart to hate the guy. Especially when Rey tells him with an almost completely genuine smile that her ex is now dating her boss. _

_ Ben doesn’t give too many details about his time in prison, but he does let her talk him into revealing some things now that they both know it won’t be his reality for years. He tells her about how the other guys had finally stopped treating him like a traitor after the public was convinced he wasn’t masterminding the trafficking. He tells her what it was like in solitary but can’t seem to put it into proper words. _

_ “It felt like being buried,” he says, grasping for a proper way to put it and coming up with very little. Knees touching his, fingers wrapped around his hands, Rey looks at him with open, encouraging eyes, waiting for him to find the words. “Like there wasn’t anything in the world but me and that room. And I...I don’t like living with myself. It’s better, since we started this, but it was… That was more than I could take. That was the worst of it.” _

_ Rey throws her arms around his neck and buries her face against him, silently begging him to hold onto her and letting him treat her like an anchor, comforting the both of them at once. They doze, but don’t really sleep much, chatting quietly, wrapped around each other as much as the space will permit and it’s bliss. Ben sleeps for a little while, then wakes to Rey’s lips pressed to the corner of his eye and they spend a good long while just kissing, practically making out like teenagers with Rey half sprawled over his lap and the armrests pushed up and out of their way. The landing jolts them out of their pleasant little bubble, almost making Rey crack her forehead against Ben’s, laughing when she misses by the barest fraction of an inch. She puts a kiss there instead and climbs off of him so they can get to the next leg of their journey. _

_ Manila is hot, especially for winter, though not much worse than Florida. Still, the oppressive heat amps up Ben’s nerves as he and Rey stand in the border control line. They’ve done their memorizing beforehand, to avoid looking suspicious by going over their passports in line last minute, but Ben’s hand still taps out a nervous rhythm against his leg as they wait. His face is clean-shaven for the first time in months, his glasses almost comfortable on his nose, his hair looks remarkably well for being a self-made plane-bathroom cut courtesy of his girlfriend but he still needs some time to get used to it. He doesn’t look like himself, especially since he’s wearing colours other than black or orange or grey for what must’ve been decades. But that’s the point, him not looking like himself, so he does his best to embrace the new look. Rey has changed in the meantime as well, wearing comfortable travel clothes that look like they belong to a woman who’s comfortable looking a little sloppy on a long trip. Together they look like a slightly anxious couple heading on a vacation they haven’t planned particularly well. _

_ Once they manage to get through the mad-house of the immigration section, the officer who takes their passports looks bored more than anything, though that fact doesn’t do much to stop Ben from being nervous. Unfortunately, the area Rey’s chosen means Ben doesn’t speak any of the languages floating around them, so he tracks the conversation the officer has with another man without understanding any of it. There doesn’t seem to be any heightened suspicion or urgency to the words, but it makes Ben twitchy anyway.  _

_ His fight or flight instinct kicks up a notch again, crawling up his spine, until Rey’s hand is there instead, smoothing up the dip at the center of his back and resting there. He turns with what might not be the most convincing smile, but it’s grateful nonetheless, and he accepts a kiss from her with no hesitation. The guard clears his throat, commanding their attention again. _

_ “What are your names?” he asks briskly, rehearsed lines given in a bland tone. _

_ “Rebecca and Ben Marston,” Rey answers smoothly, only a little too quickly, not enough to catch. Hopefully. _

_ The guard frowns and ticks something on the paper in front of him, perusing their passports and immigration documents at his leisure. Ben mentally wishes he’d just get on with it and either call them on suspicion or ask the next damn question. _

_ “And for what reason are you going to Vietnam?” he finally asks. _

_ “Relocation,” Ben says, taking this one. “Teaching English classes.” It’s the cover story Rey had come up with, his own new identity a somewhat wealthy heir, married to a mild activist who thought they could do good teaching English to underprivileged children. Rey shoots the officer a bright grin, leaning into Ben’s side like her overeager identity might do, and he gives them a wan smile in return, stamping their passports and handing them back. Ben pockets them quickly, hurrying them along before something can happen to make the border control change their minds.  _

_ After a full day of flying, following a prison break, small car chase, and being shot at, he’s burnt out and raw-edged, sick of planes beyond the telling, but the commercial flight they pack themselves onto is a relief of sorts. Up until now, they’ve been travelling semi- or not at all legally, but with the cushion of vacationing couples and noisy families, it seems much easier to fade into the crowd as just two more bodies in the masses. Not a very wanted man and his ex-FBI girlfriend. The six hour flight is almost relaxing, not in the way their hard-earned privacy had been, but in that Ben finally feels like they’re slipping away into anonymity with some success. _

_ Still, being up in the air this time is stressful in its own way, though it’s more because of the lack of personal space than anything. Ben hasn’t gotten even close to used to being around so many people again yet, and he’s generally not a fan to begin with. Still, it’s a bland sort of stress, like the way he and Rey have to struggle through with a Vietnamese phrasebook before someone takes pity on them and directs them to the docks in English.  _

_ The vessel waiting for them is nicer than Ben expected - nearly large enough to be called a yacht, and it’s equipped with a handful of crew members, including a cook. The captain assures them they’ll have a peaceful trip, speaking as though Ben and Rey are just two idiots blowing cash on an exotic adventure. Ben goes with it, following Rey’s lead and the atmosphere of the conversation. They’ll be onboard for close to fifteen hours with access to all sorts of amenities and a well-paid crew more than happy to serve their every whim before they make it to what will be their new home. But really, they’re of one mind in having no interest in anything but their cabin and the bed inside it. _

_ “I’ll never get up again,” Rey says mid-air in her leap onto the mattress. She crashes down hard and just lies there for a second, groaning into the pillows and Ben can’t help but laugh. _

_ “You’re terrible at being on the run if that’s your attitude,” he says and sits down beside her. _

_ “I firmly plan on not being on the run ever again after tomorrow,” she mumbles into the sheets and Ben hums in agreement. _

_ “So the island thing is endgame?” he asks, kind of joking, kind of making sure there isn’t some other step he’s missing. “You wanna be trapped forever with me on some remote spit of land?”  _

_ In response to this, Rey turns onto her back and in a swift move, grabs his arm to pull him half on top of her. “What do you think?” _

_ “I think you’re crazy in love with me and it’s doing things to your priorities,” he says, going easily enough when she pulls at him. Ben takes the time to study her face in detail, just because he can. “Not that I’m complaining at all.  _

_ “You got it,” Rey says and he kisses her, not on the mouth but teasingly close and she laughs at him for it. “Babe?” _

_ “Hmm?” he hums into her ear, her hair tickling his cheek. _

_ “So, I don’t know if you noticed...but we’re kind of alone. For the first time in...months.” she begins and her hands have already begun trailing up and down his arms. She looks at him playfully but with that edge of sensuality that can just about make him jump out of his skin. “What do you think about that?” _

_ “Oh, trust me, I noticed,” he whispers, toying with the edge of her shirt with one hand, slipping his fingers under it. “I’m deciding.” _

_ “What are you deciding on?” she inquires, shuffling into a more comfortable position beneath him, touching what she can reach but only ever so softly, like the little minx she is. _

_ “What I want to do to you first…” he tells her. “Whether I think the sex is going to be better now that we’re engaged.” He ducks to press his lips to the dip of her neck, trailing over her skin lightly. He’s almost afraid to start because that means it’ll be over eventually but she’s right there and he’s missed her so much and they have forever coming and so he thinks he can go on, eventually. He just wants to savour the moment first. _

_ “So you’ve been holding out on me before when we weren’t engaged?” He can tell Rey is trying to be standoff-ish but her face is flush and her voice trembles in time with his fingers on her and that alone is enough to get him hard so quickly, it almost makes him dizzy. _

_ “Of course not,” he promises and shifts to cover her entirely, one leg between hers and his elbows holding him up a few inches above her. He presses into her, delicious friction between them, just so she feels him, just so she knows how much he wants her. “But they say there’s something to the whole ‘knowing you’re spending the rest of your life together’ thing. Not sure I buy it, but I figure it’s worth testing out.” _

_ “Fair enough,” she says, her eyes darkening and hips rolling up to meet his pressure. “Still, the real question right now, if we’re honest, is if you’re going to fuck my brains out first and make love to me after or the other way around.” She flushes adorably red from saying ‘fuck’, like she very possibly will do forever and it does nothing but get him even more aroused. _

_ “I’m almost insulted you think I can’t multitask the two,” he says, his own voice less than steady. He tries to gather himself and his wits from where he’s lost them in touching Rey, kisses her for a moment only to pull back to reach the rest of her face and neck. “I fully intend to fuck you silly in a loving and devoted manner.” _

_ Rey laughs out loud, the thick sexual tension dispensed for a moment and then she pulls him into a tight hug. “I missed you so much,” she says and the playful note to her words is gone. _

_ “You have...no idea how much I missed you, Rey. I thought…” Ben’s self-satisfied grin slips and he reaches one hand up to stroke her hair. He’s not sure how to tell her or if he should at all, but they’re here now, so he might as well. “I thought you’d left when you weren’t in court after the trial. Obviously you were organizing all  _ this _ , but for a second… I thought you’d given up on me.” He kisses her forehead with all the love he has for her. “Guess I should know better by now.” _

_ “You should,” she nods and fixes him with a look as she wiggles one arm free and brings it down between them with single-minded focus. And fuck, has he missed her doing this. “I want this,” she says when her fingers happen on his skin and he takes in a sharp breath. “I want you.” The room is spinning, just like that. “You need to know that.” _

_ “I know,” he says, swallowing so he can keep his voice steady because this is important. “You might have to remind me from time to time, though. You still feel like a dream sometimes, I dunno how I’m enough for you.” _

_ “Like this, to remind you?” she asks and starts moving her hand steadily, up and down his cock the way she knows drives him right out of his mind and he can’t help but groan. It’s so impossibly good, he has half a mind to cry. “You’re so much more than enough,” she says and then twists her wrist in time with each pump. “Just this...your face right now.” _

_ “I love you,” he hisses in a breath, terribly sincere, and grabs her wrist firmly. “But if you make me come before you’re naked, I swear to god I will never forgive you.” _

_ “Well, guess you’re gonna have to make me stop, then,” she says, eyes glinting at him while she keeps jerking him off like it’s the only thing she wants to be doing in life. It almost hurts to pry her off of him but he can’t have that, can’t pathetically come into her hands and be out of it for precious time he could devote to her body. So he takes both her hands and presses them into the bed beside her head.  _

_ “I know we both like when you’re in control, but I’m gonna have to take this one,” he tells her and ducks to bite her neck, sucking to leave a bruise that ought to be huge and obvious in the morning. The sounds she makes in response send tingles down his spine and manage to turn him on even further, if it’s possible. “I’ve thought about this too much, I can’t take any teasing tonight.” _

_ And by god, that’s the honest truth. If she even started to tease him a little more than how she’s looking up at him, Ben would either come apart on the spot or devour her with no sense of propriety or consideration for her. He does want to be at least somewhat of a sound mind when he gets to have her again, so he pushes against her hands as a way to suggest she leave them where he’s put them on the bed, before he starts in earnest on getting her clothes out of the way. _

_ “What’d you think about doing most?” she asks with her breath stalling and her hands barely keeping in place while he strips her naked. God, how he’s missed those lean legs and the scent of her when he tosses her panties aside. _

_ “Putting my mouth on your skin...kept thinking about how warm you are… I’m not sure I remember what you sound like when you scream,” he says, practically mumbling to himself, too focused on leaving no scrap of fabric on her. “I had a lot of time to myself the past few months.” _

_ “Me too,” she nods. “You know what I thought about a lot?” He bites his lip and just wants her to say it, whatever it is and vows to act on it even if it isn’t his favorite fantasy. “I thought about your hair in my fist and your head between my legs.” _

_ A switch flips in Ben’s head and he is pretty sure his dick made an impressive jolt upward and he moves up to kiss her deeply, groaning into her mouth, like a wild creature. “Great minds,” he whispers and takes one of her hands in his to kiss her wrist and lets go, freeing it up. He moves back down to settle between her legs, shouldering under one knee and nuzzling into the crease of her thigh for the best angle and the best grip on her to have his way with her. “You can pull my hair all you want.” _

_ “Stop talking,” Rey breathes, not without affection but she still pushes her hips up into his face so his nose bumps into her straight away. She moans on impact and it’s such a sweet sound that he forgoes any kind of rebuttal and gets straight to work. _

_ She bucks up into him with every stroke of his tongue and groans in time with his own voice but it isn’t too long before her hands stray from where he’s put them earlier. They land in his hair first, pushing and pulling him closer and then they wander, tugging at his shirt and then scratching his arm with urgency where he’s holding her in place. _

_ “Take off your clothes,” she commands him, “I want you.” _

_ He doesn’t have to be told twice, placing a fond kiss at the rise of her hip bone before he can make himself stand. Ben’s khakis land next to his shirt and socks and before he can do anything, standing where he is to undress, she rolls on the bed and grabs him by the hip to take his cock into her mouth, sucking like it’s her job. He can’t function past the sensation. _

_ “Fuck, Rey,” he curses, “don’t you make me come like this.” _

_ She doesn’t make it easy for him and he’s been in terrible shape for holding off his orgasm. The months in jail made his endurance brittle at best but Rey still knows how to pull back just at the edge and he follows her lead. _

_ “Please, babe,” he breathes, holding her by the shoulder when she leans in to go at him again, “I’ll come.” _

_ “What if I want you to?” she asks him, with huge innocent eyes twinkling up at him and he almost chokes on his tongue. _

_ “Please.” It’s half plea and half demand, knowing he’ll do anything she wants him to do, but hoping she’ll let him have it his way this once. And she relents, rolling over and turning so she lies on her back and he doesn’t even wait until she’s settled in. _

_ He takes his time pushing into her, going slow and inch by inch, trying to pace himself, his eyes trained on hers while he goes deeper and deeper, stupidly proud that he’s big enough so this bit lasts. Lasts long enough to see her mouth pop open a bit more and her face contort into a grimace of almost pain and shock. It’s been far too long. Then the dam breaks and she babbles something about loving him and wanting him and so many variations of yes and Ben starts moving in earnest.  _

_ He’s almost forgotten how good she feels, wet and tight and welcoming and it blows his mind all over again. The fact that he gets to be there, thrusting up into her like the luckiest guy in the world and her wanting him so much, he’ll have the proof all over his body in the form of scratches from where she tried to get him closer. He follows her grasping, curled close over her and putting his hands all over, indecisive and greedy, breath caught in his throat from effort and remembered longing.  _

_ It’s taken so long to get here. Years of life together and then apart, a whirlwind of rediscovery that changed his life, and Ben recognizes that it was then Rey started to save him. When he couldn’t make himself give her only a part of him, couldn’t let himself throw his life into ruin after she’d let him touch her and hold her and taste what it might be like to love her. So long and so many stumbles and bruises and tears, and it’s somehow all worth it to know he’s found where he belongs, nestled tight against Rey’s heart, where his own battered heart is safest and beloved beyond comprehension. _

_ His mouth slides clumsy over hers, never close enough and he chokes on the thought that this is only the beginning. That she gave up her life and her world to build him a house on an island where they can live together and do this until they both crumble to dust. He’ll spend his life trying to be worthy of Rey and the sacrifices she’s made, and god help him, Ben can’t imagine anything better. _

_ Somehow, she comes before him, not trying to control herself like him, but he follows soon after. Still, he doesn’t even pull out, he just stays on top of her, buried deep, catching his breath and kissing her neck until, long minutes later, he’s all set and ready to go again. And go again they do, for most of the night. Somewhere in the darkness, his eyes mist over as Rey bites his lip hard, not from the pain but because it feels so damn good to know that, impossibly, they get to have their own happily ever after. Unconventional, missing some of the pieces that might make perfection, but theirs for the taking. _

***

When Rey wakes up, she is alone in their bed, comfortably sore, sunshine bursting through the windows, and Ben’s absence is somehow worse now than it has been all these months before. Still, the best remedy is knowing he’s not going to be far, so she walks out of their cabin in her pyjamas and passes the smiling cook on the way. She tells her they’re due to arrive at Con Dao within the hour and Rey thanks the woman with a nod, leaving her there to find Ben. Sure enough, he stands at the bow of the ship, glancing ahead. He looks adorable in his navy shorts and the white Polo she has picked out for his new persona, Ben Marston, semi-rich heir. He looks nothing like himself and too lanky for the pants, but adorable all the same. His black waves, though shorter now, still blow in the wind and the air is warm and dry, smelling like sea and boundlessness. It’s the perfect day.

“You’re up early,” she mutters into his spine once she’s wrapped her arms around him from behind, marvelling at how tan he got in such a short time.

“I couldn’t sleep anymore,” he says, turning his head so she can hear him over the rippling waves.

“The cook says another hour and we’ll be there,” Rey tells him and just then, she can faintly make out a stretch of land out there in the distance. “And then we’ll live.”

“Then we’ll live,” Ben echoes softly, running his fingertips across her arms.

“And you won’t tire of me when it’s just us?” she asks, almost entirely unconcerned.

“Never,” he promises and grabs her to pull her in front of him, so he can put his chin on her head and look over to their future home along with her. Rey is content. They’ve got a chance here, a new chapter of their story coming up, a life together. And that’s worth everything they’ve left behind. They’ve got each other, that’s all that matters.

****  
  
  


**_The End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, we are going to write an epilogue, because we can not say goodbye to these two quite yet - would you all be up for that?
> 
> Thank you all for your continued support, for your comments and kudos - especially to those regular readers who keep coming back chapter after chapter, you guys give us life and make this a wonderful journey. Thank you all, from the bottom of our hearts! <3


	16. EPILOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally...after all this time. The epilogue.

Epilogue

 

_ The waves come in a slow rumble, caressing more than hitting the shore. Ben sits, his toes in the sand and stares ahead at his little girl as she fights with a mess of alge. She is poking it with a stick, eying it guardedly as if it would fight back any moment. He smiles softly at her when she whips her head around to check if he is still looking. She looks so much like her mother, it almost hurts. He misses her. Even now. He can almost hear her voice carry down the shore but knows that’s impossible. _

 

_ She has taken Sam away to their house, to go pee, because their oldest at eight years old has just discovered modesty and won’t do her business at the tree-line, like she would have just months ago. So Ben waits and misses his wife and resolves to hold her close as soon as she gets back, to run his hand across her swollen belly and tell her that he loves her and that he can’t believe how he should be so lucky to have built this life with her. And so he will. _

 

***

 

“Sammy? Aren’t you hungry?” Rey watches her 12-year-old daughter Samantha fork around in her food one ordinary tuesday with mild irritation at her obvious distaste of her mother’s cooking. She looks very different from the recently gifted family portrait hanging above the far wall. On that thing, all Rey’s three children look nice and kempt and behaved and she loves it. Even if it’s a somewhat tacky gift, that painting, it was given from the people over in the village for Ben and her last wedding anniversary, a  _ thank you _ for years of helping to build and grow the community, what with Ben working at a local carpenter and Rey having picked up teaching. It spoke of gratefulness and affection and that meant the world to Rey, even after all these years. They had made a home of this place. Against all odds, they had found a place to grow old and raise their children.

 

“I don’t like cauliflower,” Sam says flatly, obviously not as deeply content as her mother.

“But you liked it last week?” Rey asks.

“Yeah, well,” Sam’s voice is testy at the least and Rey shoots her husband a knowing look, a small smile playing on her lips, “I changed my mind, I guess.”

“You thinking about changing it back any time soon?” Ben asks his daughter and she rolls her eyes in the same way he usually does.

“No.” Sam sighs. “You’re not funny, Dad.”

“I’m hilarious, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ben shrugs easily and turns to their four-year old son. “Besides, the ghost trees are the best, right Levi?”

“Yes!” The little boy declares, revealing a full mouth of food in various states of chewedness, just like his mother on her best days.

“Daddy, daddy, look!” Maya, at eight years very keen on being the center of attention, is trying to balance her spoon on her nose and demands recognition for the feat.

“See? Maya’s gonna be an acrobat and Levi’s gonna end up taller than you because you didn’t eat your vegetables,” Ben says to his oldest daugher. “So sad.”

“Yeah, well, just give them to the circus,” she shoots back, voice dripping with sarcasm and pouts. “Oh no, wait, I forgot, there is no circus here because it’s a freakin’ tiny island where nothing ever happens!”

“Language!” Rey warns and Ben snaps a “Watch it” simultaneously.

 

“I’m just saying,” Sam insists, albeit quieter, if no less pouty.

“Everybody thinks nothing happens where they are at your age, trust me,” Ben says, in advance of any argument pertaining to it being on an island, a tried topic with their oldest but nothing they can realistically do anything about. “And I know we live in a little bit of a smaller somewhere, but your mother and I worked very hard to find a place where you could grow up better than we did.”

“I know, I know,” Sam sighs, relenting and going on to parrot the often reprised, child-friendly version of the story of how the Marston family came to their little island. “...you didn’t have a family. So this is where you built it. It’s a paradise and we have it good here. I know.”

“Sweetheart, when you’re 18, you can go and travel the world as much as you like, but until then, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to stick it out with us,” Rey says and reaches over to squeeze her daughter’s arm.

“Sam, you should stay,” Levi chimes in with his high little voice. “We have the best beach ever and I’d miss you.”

Sam smiles against her own will and ruffles his hair. “I’d miss you too, little idiot.”

“Hey!” Levi frowns and tries to get away from his sister’s teasing.

“Don’t call your brother an idiot,” Rey chastises lightly. “Be nice to him, you won’t get a new one.”

“One’s enough anyway,” Maya offers.

“Terrible. All the women are against us, Levi,” Ben says.

“I don’t mind,” the boy shrugs. “You’re the tallest.”

“You make a good point, kid,” his father agrees.

 

“So, can I interest you in anything else to eat?” Rey inquires, turning her attention back to Sam. “Or do you want to jump straight over to dessert?”

“I want to jump over to dessert!” Maya says excitedly.

“You haven’t eaten your potatoes, your sister has,” Rey says.

“Mommy, please.”

“Nope.” 

“Daddy??” Maya is giving her dad doe eyes, knowing exactly what she is doing and Rey could swear that it works on him a lot more frequently when she is not there to witness it.

“Nobody’s skipping to dessert unless I see clean plates,” Ben says though, remaining firm on the parenting for now. “That goes for everybody.”

“See, your daddy’s the wrong person to try and sweet-talk, honey,” Rey says, a little smug.

“ _ You _ are just easy because you want dessert right away too,” Ben says, crashing her parade.

“Don’t tell ‘em that!” She exaggeratedly chides and leans over to him to kiss his stubbled cheek.

“Gross,” comes the instant response from Sam to her other side but Ben promptly ignores his daughter and turns to kiss Rey fully. 

“This is why I’m the tallest,” he says, “So I can hide the sweets from the rest of you.”

“Dad, really, ugh, just…,” Sam is near gagging.

“Chill out, Sammy, will you?” Rey says over Maya’s chuckling, breaking away from looking at her husband. “The sooner you finish your plate, the sooner you can leave this table and not watch us kiss.” 

“You guys are disgusting,” Sam mutters and Rey can see that she is broken and going to eat her stupid cauliflower.

“We love each other,” Ben says and kisses Rey lightly again. “You have no idea how lucky you are that we’re disgusting.”

“Will you really not make another boy baby?” Levi asks, with his amazing sense of timing, making his mother start and laugh, looking back and forth between her two little ones.

“Honey, did you pass on some of that talk we had to your brother?” She asks Maya, referring to that time Maya asked them where the babies come from.

Maya nods affirmative and seems very proud of herself: “He understands.”

“I can’t listen to this,” Sam swallows. “Okay, I’m finished, all gone. Can I have dessert now?” 

 

***

 

_ When the kids are finally all tucked in bed and kissed good-night and Rey and Ben have gotten ready for bed themselves, talking while putting on their PJs across the bed from each other as they do most nights, they lie down together. Face to face, the way Ben loves it, putting his hand under her cheek so she can look at him easier. She still looks at him like she did that first day on the undercover shtick, when he had opened the door for her and her face burst open into an involuntary smile she could not keep at bay. It still broke his heart in all the best ways. Even at almost forty, she was still breathtaking, her face lined with laughter and joy, still young and perfect to him. _

 

_ “Told you she was going to get difficult,” she says, her voice low and slightly amused. _

_ “But she was so cute when she didn’t have hormones,” he says. “I’m not ready.” _

_ “I know,” Rey smiles and tucks a strand of his ever too-long-hair behind his ear. “You missed me at that age. I was exactly like that.” _

_ He can’t help but eye her suspiciously, because that can’t be right. “I have this feeling you were worse. At least Sam ended up eating the damn vegetables. You probably would’ve snuck them into your napkin.” _

_ “She’s just starting to learn,” Rey quips and he grins. “We’ll just have to wait and see how long us making out will suffice for bullying her into submission.” _

_ “I can always pick her up by her ankles and hold her upside down until she concedes defeat,” he shrugs easily. _

_ “Human parenting, babe,” his wife grins. “We said we’d try human parenting now they’re this old.” _

_ “Boring,” he complains and rolls over heavily to smush his face against Rey’s neck, sighing. “We could tell her I’m a notorious evildoer and hope she behaves?” _

 

_ “I think we’ll just stay the course and hope we all make it out in one piece. At least until Maya’s twelve. And then...so help us God,” Rey exhales and then chuckles. “Can you believe this? We have  _ three _ kids. Real live children and all of them walking and talking.” _

_ “I’m old,” he says, after a dramatic pause and only half-joking. “I’m so sorry, I meant to keep this from happening.” _

_ “Please don’t,” she underlines that statement by kissing what of him she can reach, not minding his wrinkles one bit as it seems. “I like old-you. I like old-you a lot better than I like old-me.” _

_ “Please. You’re not old,” he scoffs and shifts up to look down at her, play with her hair, brush his fingers over her shoulder, simple touches just because he can, just because he gets to. “I remember forty, it was a good time.” _

_ “Don’t say the bad word,” she almost cries and tries to bury her face in the palm of his hand. “I’m still in my thirties.”  _

_ “You are.” He kisses her face for every sentence he speaks. “And it looks beautiful on you. Just like forty will. When you eventually get there.” _

_ “In the far future,” she concedes. “Remember when you turned forty and Maya just wouldn’t sleep ever?” _

 

_ “It’s a bit fuzzy from the lack of sleep if we’re being honest. I mostly just remember a whole lot of ‘no, Ben, leave her, she’ll wear herself out’.” _

_ “It was so amazing to finally see her doze off. But you know what is even more amazing?” _

_ Ben only hums questioningly in reply. _

_ “Now our children are old enough to sleep through the night all by themselves and I can just do this,” she says and then makes a hearty grab for his junk, “and not worry about anything.” _

_ “Thank god for that,” he is totally down to roll with it, but he isn’t as young as he was, there’s been a definite slow down in the pace of their sex. Not in a bad way but they are both getting older and sometime along the line, their ravishing each other has turned into love-making with some rough moments of urgency here and there. But for the most part, their coming together is easier, softer than it used to be. And he loves it.  _

 

_ “We’re not having another though, right?” He asks, not really knowing what answer he is looking for. He is happy with the kids they have and wouldn’t really want to go through the whole ordeal of having a newborn again. But damn him if he didn’t miss having one. _

_ “No.” Rey says though, quite definite as she climbs on top of him. “I don’t want to share you with any more people. These three out there are okay but everything else would be excessive, don’t you think?” _

_ “Absolutely.” He agrees for now and lets his hands travel down her frame until settling on her hips to pull her along with him so he can sit up a bit with Rey in his lap. “You sure you still want to get in my pants? After all these years?” _

_ “I’m sure. After all, I still have to wait and see if I ever do manage to wear you out,” she challenges and kisses him hotly, as if to make her point. _

_ He groans into her mouth, his nearly fifty-year-old body shifting into gear just fine. “Just shoot me when that happens. I don’t think I could stand the disappointment.” _

_ Rey grins against his mouth when she can feel him growing hard under her and mutters against his lips: “It doesn’t seem like it yet.” _

_ “Shall we find out?” He hums thoughtfully and pushes upward against her for good measure while she plucks her shirt from her head and laughs a “Yes, please.”  _

  
  


_ Ben can’t wait to touch his wife, feel her skin flush under his fingertips and he is about to say something really naughty when there is a ruffle at the door and a second later, and without more warning, Levi stands in the door, his blanky crumpled in his hands and laying half on the floor. Ray freezes and he can’t do much more than press her tight to his chest to cover her naked front, while glancing past her shoulder at their snivelling son. _

 

_ “Hey, kid, you alright?” He asks and feels Rey turn her head, making an effort not to reveal her bare chest too much. _

_ “Can I sleep with you?” Levi asks, apparently unfazed by their display of affection and Rey sighs deeply.  _

_ He knows she would like to tell him no but being the mother that she is, she takes a breath to allow it but he intercedes, shooting her a brief look and then turning with her, so she can gather up her shirt hidden by his frame as he goes to talk to his son. _

_ “What’s the matter? Bad dream?” He asks Levi, kneeling down in front of him. _

_ “No,” Levi shakes his head. “I just missed you.”  _

_ “Okay, buddy. I’m glad you like us so much, but you know you can’t just sleep in our bed whenever you want, right?” Ben ruffles Levi’s hair and prays that the little boy will see reason this once. “That’s why you have your bed.” _

_ “And daddy and mommy have  _ their _ bed so they can sleep there alone from time to time,” Rey adds, sitting back up with her shirt back in place. “Do you think that’s okay for tonight?”  _

_ Levi relents, if slowly and Ben tries to swallow down his sigh of relief. “How about I tuck you in and you stay in your own bed after that? Sound like a deal?” _

_ Their son nods hesitantly and then opens his arms to get picked up. He’s too old for this really, Ben thinks, but Levi’s tired and he likes his dad and that’s not so bad after all, so Ben lifts him up with no hesitation and scoops up the blanky in the process, wrapping Levi in it while he carries him across the door frame and pauses. _

_ “Tell Mommy goodnight,” he says. _

_ “Night Momma,” their son obeys and throws her a kiss, which is so adorable, Ben winces.  _

_ “Goodnight, big boy, I’m proud of you,” Rey says through a bright grin and Ben could about wince again. “I love you both so much.” _

_ “Love you too, Mom,” he says and kisses the top of Levi’s head. “Alright, kid, let’s go to bed.”  _

 

_ “Now, where were we?” Rey asks when he gets back, having used the time he was gone to strip down completely and then Ben locks the door just to be safe.  _

_ Tonight, he wants no more interruptions. _

 

_ The End  _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for sticking it out and being so patient. We hope you liked this ending!  
> No on to the next movie!


End file.
